S.O.S.:  AMERICA'S  MIRACLE  IN  FRANCE 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  BUSINESS 

OF  WAR  Cloth,  Net,  $1.50 

THE  REBIRTH 

OF  RUSSIA       Cloth,  Net,  $1.25 

THE  WAR  AFTER 

THE  WAR         Cloth,  Net,  $1.25 

LEONARD  WOOD: 

PROPHET  OF  PREPAREDNESS 

Cloth,  Net,  75  cents 


GENERAL  JOHN  J.  PERSHING 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  A.  E.  F. 


s.  o.  s. 

AMERICA'S  MIRACLE  IN  FRANCE 


BY 

ISAAC  F.  MARCOSSON 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR," 

"THE  REBIRTH  OF  RUSSIA," 

"THE  WAR  AFTER  THE  WAR," 

ETC. 


WITH  FIFTEEN  I 

FROM  PBO'fOCJUFHS 


NEW   YORK:     JOHN    LANE    COMPANY 

LONDON:     JOHN    LANE,   THE    BODLEY  HEAD 

MCMXIX 


Isio 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  1919,  BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
GENERAL  JOHN  J.  PERSHING 

SOLDIER,  DIPLOMAT,  ADMINISTRATOR 


FOREWORD 


THIS  book  was  written  in  France — often  within 
sound  of  the  guns — as  a  tribute  to  the  unsung 
heroes  of  Supply  and  Transport.     Many  were 
above  military  age;  most  of  them  left  congenial  jobs 
to  do  their  part  in  a  task  which  was  both  stern  and 
unspectacular.     Far  from  the  firing  line  which  they 
longed  to  join,  and  amid  the  dust  of  traffic,  the  din 
of  docks,  and  the  hot  confines  of  an  office,  they  con- 
tributed vitally  to  the  achievement  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force. 

Their  work  discloses  an  unselfish  and  uncomplain- 
ing effort  that  will  rank  with  the  glories  of  Chateau- 
Thierry,  St.  Mihiel  and  Sedan.  More  than  this  it 
proves  that  the  genius  of  American  organisation  was 
no  less  effective  in  war  than  in  peace.  The  lessons  of 
efficiency  learned  under  the  stress  of  necessity  over- 
seas should  now  be  capitalised  in  the  vast  Drama  of 
Reconstruction  at  home. 

To  those  gallant  men  of  the  A.E.F.  from  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  down,  I  desire  to  express  my  grate- 
ful appreciation  of  a  co-operation  and  a  comradeship 
that  made  my  work  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege. 

I.  F.  M. 

New  York,  January,  1919. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S 15 

II    THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR 37 

III  ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC 65 

IV  FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE 105 

V    FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS 119 

VI    THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY 145 

VII    DETROIT  IN  FRANCE 171 

VIII    THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN 197 

IX    THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE 220 

X    NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD 237 

XI  THE  MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION  .     .  258 

XII    SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH 296 

XIII  BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR 306 

XIV  THE  BALANCE  SHEET 330 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


GENERAL  JOHN  J.  PERSHING Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

THE  AUTHOR'S  LETTER  OF  AUTHORIZATION    ...  28 

MAJOR-GENERAL  JAMES  G.  HARBORD      ....  46 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  HAGOOD  AND  THE  AUTHOR      .  52 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  W.  W.  ATTERBURY       ...  82 

MAJOR-GENERAL  HARRY  L.  ROGERS 120 

COLONEL  F.  H.  POPE 176 

COLONEL  H.  A.  HEGEMAN 176 

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL  M.  R.  WAINER       ....       176 

COLONEL  H.  C.  SMITHER 176 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  EDGAR  JADWIN 288 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  M.  L.  WALKER        ....  288 

COLONEL  W.  J.  WILGUS 288 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  GEORGE  VAN  HORN  MOSELEY  288 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL  CHARLES  G.  DAWES    ...  310 


zi 


S.O.S.:  AMERICA'S  MIRACLE  IN  FRANCE 


I— The  Birth  of  the  S.  O.  S. 


THE  boom  of  American  cannon  echoed  beyond 
the  Meuse;  machine  guns  sputtered  wickedly 
to  the  right  and  left ;  overhead  Liberty  motors 
hummed  as  the  aeroplanes  returned  from  their  eve- 
ning reconnaissance;   down   the   dark   paths  to  the 
trenches  troops  marched  to  the  rattle  of  equipment. 
All  around  was  the  deadly  din  of  war — the  unfailing 
music  of  the  supreme  world  drama.     America  was 
on  the  frontiers  of  the  Great  Redemption. 

Behind  that  fighting  front  stretches  another  bat- 
tle-line that  reaches  from  those  perilous  posts  of  free- 
dom four  hundred  miles  down  to  the  sea  and  then 
*  •* 

three  thousand  miles  beyond  to  the  shores  of  the 
United  States.  About  it  is  no  glamour  of  stirring 
spectacle;  no  scene  of  actual  combat.  Yet  day  and 
night  and  with  ceaseless  and  heroic  endeavour  it  feeds 
and  supplies  the  battling  hosts.  Instead  of  mustard 
gas  it  breathes  the  choking  dust  of  teeming  highways ; 
in  place  of  open  shot  and  bursting  shell  it  faces  the 
hidden  hazard  of  the  submarine.  Bending  beneath 
the  burden  of  a  tonnage  that  is  one  of  the  wonders 
of  the  war,  it  maintains  the  insurance  against  a  dis- 
aster more  destructive  than  Hun  advance.  For  mouth 
and  guns  must  be  fed  and  fighters  clothed  and  car- 
ried. 

15 


i6  .  A  •••,     S.  O.  S. 

We  thrilled  at  the  narrative  of  Chateau-Thierry 
and  St.  Mihiel,  yet  every  twenty- four  hours  since  we 
have  had  an  army  of  any  size  in  France  these  legions 
of  transport  and  subsistence,  combating  wind,  rain 
and  every  obstacle  that  war-fare  in  a  foreign  land 
imposes,  have  registered  an  achievement  fit  to  rank 
with  that  high  heroism.  Their  gallantries  have  been 
recorded  in  the  tangle  of  railroad  yards,  in  the  gloom 
of  warehouses,  amid  the  glare  of  sun-scorched  quays, 
or  the  prosaic  routine  of  repair  shops.  For  them 
there  are  few  medals  of  merit;  only  the  consciousness 
that  without  their  unsung  service  of  the  rear  there 
would  be  no  brilliant  offensive  at  the  front. 

This  army  behind  the  army  is  the  first  to  land ;  the 
last  to  leave.  In  his  eager  search  for  the  smell  of 
powder  sightseer  and  historian  pass  it  by.  Nor  is 
it  surprising.  In  the  thrall  of  battle  tumult  the  world 
loses  sight  of  the  mechanics  of  war.  It  is  easier  to 
have  an  emotion  about  a  forlorn  hope  led  to  victory 
than  about  a  food  supply  column  that  reached  the 
line  under  a  storm  of  shrapnel.  Yet  the  courage  of 
the  teamsters  who  faced  death  with  only  the  reins 
in  their  hands  is  full  mate  to  the  valour  of  the  fight- 
ing men  armed  with  rifles. 

From  France  this  past  year  has  come  a  flood  of 
writing  about  the  fighting  doughboy  and  his  doings. 
The  boy  who  supplies  the  doughboy  has,  in  the  main, 
escaped  the  spot-light.  Yet  he  is  part  of  an  intricate 
organisation  that  has  solved,  so  far  as  supply  and 
transport  are  concerned,  the  most  stupendous  mili- 
tary problem  in  all  history.  For  every  soldier  that 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  17 

we  land  in  France  we  must  also  land  fifty  pounds  of 
supplies  and  equipment  every  day.  Most  of  it  comes 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  submarine-infested  sea. 
Each  aeroplane  that  we  assemble  over  there  needs 
forty  men  for  upkeep.  Our  motor  transport  service 
alone  requires  sixty  thousand  different  kinds  of  spare 
parts.  To  guard  against  a  break-down  in  ocean  com- 
munication we  are  compelled  to  keep  and  do  keep 
a  ninety  days'  reserve  of  food  and  fuel  on  the  Con- 
tinent. We  have  more  than  two  million  troops  in 
France  and  the  number  increases  daily.  A  ship  loaded 
with  soldiers  or  supplies  leaves  an  American  port 
for  France  every  fifteen  minutes.  An  avalanche  of 
men  and  munitions  literally  beats  upon  the  shores  of 
our  sister  republic.  We  originally  planned  for  an 
expeditionary  force  of  500,000  men;  the  scheme  has 
been  expanded  five  times  until  we  now  march  to  a 
goal  of  4,000,000.  These  men  and  their  supplies  must 
be  adapted  to  a  shifting  scheme  of  combat  or  sub- 
sistence the  moment  they  arrive.  How  have  we  kept 
pace  with  this  stupendous  and  incessant  activity  and 
at  the  same  time  avoided  a  congestion  that  in  twenty- 
four  hours  would  be  fatal  to  an  adequate  participa- 
tion in  the  war?  What  is  the  system  that  has  been 
proof  against  every  handicap  that  enemy  cunning, 
aided  by  geography,  could  set  up? 

Search  for  the  reply  and  a  master  chapter  in  the 
story  of  the  American  effort  in  France  is  bared.  It 
is  an  epic  of  action  aglow  with  faith  and  rich  with 
the  sacrifice  of  men  who,  eager  to  rise  up  and  fight, 
buckle  down  to  drudgery  that  has  no  thrills.  They 


i8  S.  O.  S. 

wrestle  with  figures,  pore  over  charts,  pound  type- 
writers, drive  trucks,  unload  ships  and  build  docks 
and  railways  in  order  that  their  more  fortunate  broth- 
ers may  have  a  fling  at  glory.  This  romance  of 
America  transplanted  is  as  stirring  as  any  battle  biog- 
raphy. 

I  have  touched  it  at  every  point.  For  weeks  I 
followed  the  trail  of  tins  and  transport  from  dock 
to  trench,  I  lived  in  the  turmoil  of  ports,  dug  into 
diagrams,  saw  this  whole  panorama  of  supply  pass 
in  deafening  and  well-nigh  bewildering  review.  When 
you  have  watched  it  you  realise  why  the  American 
soldier  has  not  missed  a  meal  or  lacked  the  where- 
withal to  fight  ever  since  he  has  been  abroad.  It 
took  blood  and  sweat  and  agony  to  produce  the  goods, 
but  they  have  always  been  delivered.  The  fifty  mil- 
lions that  we  spend  every  day  for  war  are  not  wasted. 

Likewise  you  understand  how,  when  Paris  sat  im- 
perilled last  July,  General  Pershing  could  swing  a 
well-equipped  and  well-supplied  army  into  the  line 
almost  overnight  and  help  stem  the  tide  at  that  his- 
toric stream  where  once  before  civilisation  trembled 
for  its  fate.  It  was  not  accident  or  luck  that  added 
Chateau-Thierry  to  the  lustre  of  American  arms.  It 
was  because  the  American  overseas  machine  that  feeds 
the  fighting  man  was  so  well  constructed  and  so  mo- 
bile that  it  responded  swiftly  and  efficiently  to  the 
first  emergency  call.  Here  was  revealed  and  in  kin- 
dling fashion  the  initial  phase  of  the  mighty  miracle 
that  has  transformed  a  disorganised  democracy  into 
a  formidable  military  power. 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  19 

I  have  no  illusions  about  army  organisation.  For 
three  years  I  have  ranged  that  flaming  battle  line  that 
once  began  in  the  snowy  Caucasus  and  ends  at  last 
in  the  blue  waters  of  the  Adriatic.  In  that  time  I 
have  seen  many  millions  of  men  under  every  condi- 
tion of  modern  combat  and  commisariat.  "The  lives 
they  led  were  mine."  Thus  it  came  about  in  the 
troubled  course  of  war  events  that  after  all  this  wan- 
dering amid  alien  armies  and  under  foreign  flags  I 
came  at  last  to  my  own  people  to  find  the  supreme 
supply  achievement  of  the  struggle. 

It  is  no  depreciation  of  any  of  the  army  organisa- 
tions that  I  have  described  to  say  that  the  American 
Business  of  War  as  expressed  in  the  Service  of  Sup- 
ply (the  "S.  O.  S."  they  call  it  for  short)  is  the  most 
remarkable  performance  of  the  kind  that  I  have  yet 
seen.  Those  magic  letters  which,  flashed  by  wireless, 
spell  distress  at  sea,  mean  first  aid  to  the  fighting 
American  in  France.  Dwell  under  their  Standard  and 
you  feel  that  they  may  also  stand  for  the  Spirit  of 
Sacrifice ! 

Do  not  get  the  idea  that  we  have  reached  perfec- 
tion. You  cannot  construct  a  Panama  Canal  over 
night  and  fail  to  find  a  few  raw  spots  at  dawn.  We 
are  not  standardised,  for  example,  like  the  British 
or  the  French.  But  England  and  France  have  reached 
the  limit  of  their  war  strength;  they  have  been  going 
war  concerns  for  over  four  years.  Our  troops  and 
supplies,  on  the  other  hand,  are  in  a  constant  race 
across  the  Atlantic.  We  serve  as  we  build.  Hence 
in  the  magnitude  of  our  operations,  in  the  difficulties 


20  S.  O.  S. 

that  eternally  beset  us,  and  in  the  far-flung  and  gal- 
vanic energy  that  animates  us,  we  stand  alone.  The 
impetuosity  of  the  American  soldier,  one  of  his  out- 
standing qualities,  obtains  with  ration  as  with  rifle. 
The  proverbial  desert  that  suddenly  bloomed  like 
a  garden  has  nothing  on  the  A.  E.  F.  By  one  of  the 
curious  paradoxes  of  war  we  create  and  consume  at 
the  same  time.  A  warehouse  is  filled  before  it  is 
roofed;  giant  cranes  swing  cargoes  from  ships  while 
they  are  being  berthed ;  the  cow-catchers  of  American 
locomotives  press  on  the  heels  of  the  track  construc- 
tion gangs.  The  supply  city  of  to-day  is  unrecognisa- 
ble in  a  fortnight  because  it  grows  so  fast.  We  have 
turned  farms  into  factories;  converted  swamps  into 
swarming  communities.  We  reclaim  men  just  as  we 
salvage  guns.  We  have  laid  down  and  operate  a  series 
of  railways  equal  in  scope  to  the  Pennsylvania  sys- 
tem ;  we  feed  and  supply  a  population  almost  as  large 
as  that  of  St.  Louis;  we  have  erected  a  cold  storage 
plant  that  would  supply  every  citizen  in  Greater 
New  York,  London,  Paris  and  Chicago  with  fresh 
meat  for  twenty-four  hours;  somewhere  in  France 
we  have  established  a  motor  principality  that  is  a 
small  replica  of  Detroit.  Co-ordinating  this  universe 
of  effort  is  a  system  of  control  and  administration, 
linked  up  with  every  scientific  aid  to  modern  com- 
merce, that  would  run  a  hundred  United  States  Steel 
Corporations  all  rolled  into  one.  Even  the  horses 
have  identity  discs!  Quantity  output,  which  drama- 
tises the  genius  of  the  American  Industry  of  Peace, 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  21 

is  duplicated  in  this  new  American  Business  of  War, 
Unlimited ! 

Every  real  American  is  a  shareholder  in  this  giant 
enterprise.  Its  bank  is  the  Liberty  Bond ;  its  balance 
sheet  the  roll  of  our  national  honour;  its  perpetual 
dividend  will  be  peace  and  security  in  the  days  to 
come. 

The  spirit  of  that  Overseas  America  which  changed 
Allied  depression  into  defiance  in  the  crucial  hour  of 
the  war  is  after  all  the  same  pioneer  spirit  that  con- 
quered the  prairies  and  won  the  West.  It  animated 
Lincoln  and  Lee  and  Grant  and  is  to-day  reincar- 
nated in  the  character  and  purpose  of  Pershing  and 
the  working  and  fighting  host  he  leads.  In  this  war- 
born  faith  which  finds  one  expression  in  the  Services 
of  Supply  lies  the  hope  of  the  New  America,  which, 
re-created  in  the  crucible  of  conflict,  will  be  a  factor 
in  the  rehabilitation  of  the  world. 

You  cannot  understand  the  immense  operation 
which  daily  pumps  and  provides  the  life  blood  of  the 
A.  E.  F.  without  knowing  the  approach  to  that  his- 
toric day  when  our  troops  first  set  foot  on  France. 
It  explains  many  things,  most  of  all  the  colossal  diffi- 
culties under  which  our  supply  system  was  launched. 

As  most  people  know,  Marshal  Joffre  went  to 
America  soon  after  we  declared  war  and  pleaded  for 
immediate  assistance.  It  is  no  secret  that  the  French 
morale  had  wavered  slightly  under  three  years  of 
incessant  hammering.  Human  endurance,  heroic  as 
it  was,  had  almost  reached  the  limit  of  its  powers. 
The  hero  of  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne  said  in 


22  S.    O.    S. 

substance :  "Send  us  troops  at  once.  You  must  make 
a  beginning  no  matter  how  small."  This  procedure 
was  against  our  better  judgment,  which  dictated  de- 
lay until  we  could  come  in  force.  Besides  the  way 
had  to  be  prepared.  But  France's  need  was  urgent. 

It  followed  that  almost  before  the  United  States 
realised  that  it  had  gone  to  war  our  First  Expedi- 
tionary Force — the  immortal  prototype  of  Britain's 
gallant  "First  Seven  Divisions,"  steamed  unheralded 
into  St.  Nazaire  on  a  June  day  in  1917  that  will  be 
forever  famous.  So  far  as  the  tools  of  supply  and 
transport  were  concerned,  that  vanguard  of  the  new 
armies  of  democracy  had  practically  nothing  but  its 
bare  hands,  and  with  these  implements  it  set  to  work. 
The  spade  had  to  precede  the  crusade.  Bread  was 
necessary  before  bullets.  The  first  scene  in  the  vast 
drama  of  our  actual  participation  therefore  discloses 
that  handful  of  men  in  khaki  digging,  grubbing  and 
building,  and  it  has  kept  up  ever  since  on  a  constantly 
increasing  scale. 

At  the  start  the  two  principal  problems  were  re- 
vealed. One  was  labour;  the  other  was  tonnage. 
This  is  why  our  little  army  could  not  join  the  battle 
line  at  once.  It  discarded  the  rifle  for  the  pick;  the 
engineers  who  came  out  to  plan  trenches,  military  rail- 
ways, and  fortifications  had  to  enlarge  docks,  build 
berths  and  erect  bakeries. 

Now  began  the  chorus  of  European  criticism  which 
was  not  without  its  echoes  back  home.  Those  of  us 
who  travelled  back  and  forth  from  Europe  in  those 
trying  days  got  it  on  all  sides.  "Why  is  America 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  23 

so  slow?  Why  can't  a  nation  of  a  hundred  millions 
get  an  army  into  the  field?"  was  the  refrain. 

These  people  who  jeered  and  criticised  little  knew 
the  price  in  sweat  and  sacrifice  that  our  outposts  in 
France  were  paying  for  unreadiness.  But  if  the  na- 
tion was  unprepared  the  individual  was  not.  It  is 
the  triumph  of  this  dauntless  individualism,  now 
welded  into  an  organised  and  close-knit  whole,  that 
has  made  the  achievement  of  the  A.  E.  F.  possible. 
Nowhere  is  it  more  strikingly  apparent  than  in  the 
development  of  the  Services  of  Supply. 

But  while  those  intrepid  outposts  whose  picks  and 
derricks  registered  a  courage  not  surpassed  on  the 
firing  line,  worked  and  worried,  help  was  on  the 
way.  During  the  heart-breaking  autumn  of  1917  the 
labour  battalions  began  to  arrive.  The  plantation 
darkey  from  Alabama  suddenly  found  himself  work- 
ing alongside  a  Chinese  coolie  on  a  French  dock  piled 
with  American  supplies.  We  began  to  annex  ports; 
our  engineers  burrowed  into  the  rich  soil  of  France; 
acres  of  machinery  sprawled  about  in  apparent  con- 
fusion. Still  the  plaint  was  "Why  so  slow?" 

Then  the  miracle  happened.  Almost  overnight  the 
visible  structure  of  a  vast  supply  system  appeared. 
Out  of  the  mire  rose  quays;  in  the  waste  places  ware- 
houses broke  like  magic;  American  locomotives  seem- 
ingly sprang  from  the  ground  as  the  fabled  knights  of 
old  leaped  from  the  planted  dragons'  teeth.  The 
French  blinked  their  eyes;  our  British  cousins  stood 
speechless.  But  to  the  American  it  represented  no 
witchery  or  necromancy.  Accustomed  to  see  a  gaping 


24  S.  O.  S. 

busy  hole  in  the  midst  of  a  city  block  give  forth  a 
steel  skyscraper  almost  overnight  he  knew  that  Yankee 
construction  history,  animated  by  stupendous  hustle, 
was  simply  repeating  itself. 

In  trying  to  appraise  our  whole  supply  and  trans- 
port performance  in  France  (and  it  is  all  part  of  the 
larger  American  war  story),  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  practically  without  preparation  we  were  sud- 
denly called  upon  to  send  an  army  overseas  and  sus- 
tain it.  Back  of  this  lay  the  fact  that  we  had  to  create 
and  train  that  army  first.  Until  we  went  to  grips  with 
Germany  we  had  no  considerable  armed  force.  What 
we  did  have  was  largely  national  guard.  The  regular 
establishment  never  exceeded  100,000  men.  It  was 
scattered  throughout  the  United  States,  Alaska,  Porto 
Rico,  the  Philippines,  China  and  Panama.  A  colonel 
seldom  had  his  regiment  together ;  save  at  manoeuvres 
we  never  mustered  a  brigade;  until  the  mobilisation 
on  the  Mexican  border  a  division  was  an  impossi- 
bility. The  European  war  produced  the  General  Or- 
ganisation Project  which  outlined  a  real  American 
army  comprising  a  larger  combatant  force  than  the 
whole  Union  had  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War;  many 
more  men  than  Grant  had  ever  handled  at  any  one 
time.  The  modern  army  not  only  fights  but  invents. 
.Into  its  scheme  must  go  every  aid  that  science  or 
German  hellishness  have  brought  to  honourable  com- 
bat. It  means  wireless,  searchlights,  gas  and  aero- 
plane service,  and  countless  other  things  undreamed 
of  when  we  went  to  war  with  Spain.  Yet  this  scheme 
was  only  on  paper  when  the  hour  struck  for  Amer- 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  25 

ica.  It  meant,  as  far  as  our  present  purpose  is  con- 
cerned, that  the  vitally  necessary  agency  to  feed,  equip 
and  transport  troops  on  a  large  scale  was  barely  in 
the  making.  Now  you  can  see  why  we  have  had  to 
build  and  serve  and  fight  in  France,  all  at  the  same 
time. 

Search  all  history  and  you  will  find  that  no  great 
military  effort  was  ever  made  under  the  handicaps 
that  tried  the  souls  of  the  organisers  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Forces.  You  must  know  them  before 
you  can  make  a  real  estimate  of  that  far-flung  line  of 
communication  that  not  only  binds  the  American 
trench  to  warehouse  and  factory  but  never  knows  a 
break. 

First  of  all  we  have  what  may  be  called  the  moral 
obstacle  crystallised  in  our  national  ignorance  of  what 
an  army  is.  To  our  credit  we  have  always  been  a 
peace-loving  nation.  But  when  the  world  is  at  war 
this  state  of  mind  is  not  altogether  an  asset  Al- 
though many  Americans  outwardly  hooted  at  Mr. 
Bryan's  theory  that  "a  million  men  would  leap  to  arms 
between  sunrise  and  sunset"  many  of  them  secretly 
thought  he  was  right.  They  changed  their  minds 
when  the  draft  came  along  and  the  era  of  the  train- 
ing camp  began. 

It  was  the  fashion  in  many  quarters  to  jeer  at  the 
regular  army,  to  deride,  for  example,  the  quarter- 
master who  in  the  popular  ignorance  was  looked  upon 
as  a  sutler  or  a  glorified  clerk.  Yet  it  was  the  band 
of  devoted  regular  quartermasters,  capitalising  their 
hardwon  experience  in  Cuban  jungle,  Philippine  wild, 


26  S.  O.  S. 

or  on  the  sun-baked  Mexican  border,  who  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  wing  of  our  enormous  supply  service 
that  is  the  backbone  of  the  system.  Then,  too,  Amer- 
icans did  not  readily  grasp  the  idea  that  a  great  army 
must  be  equipped  and,  what  is  most  important,  prop- 
erly organised  and  officered.  All  this  required  Edu- 
cation at  a  time  when  intelligent  and  alert  Co-opera- 
tion should  have  been  the  watchword.  It  only  made 
our  job  in  Europe  all  the  harder. 

But  this  moral  handicap  paled  before  the  physical 
obstacles  that  grimly  blocked  the  way.  Heading  the 
list  was  the  super-problem  of  transporting  men  and 
supplies  across  three  thousand  miles  of  sea,  full  of 
hidden  terror  and  destruction.  With  a  minimum  av- 
erage requirement  of  five  tons  of  shipping  for  every 
man  in  France  the  magnitude  of  the  proposition  is  at 
once  apparent.  And  we  had  no  shipping. 

Right  here  came  the  fundamental  difference  between 
the  subsistence  problems  of  the  three  leading  Allies. 
The  French  had  all  their  sources  of  supply  at  hand; 
England  could  rectify  her  water  transportation  in 
twenty- four  hours;  with  us  it  was  a  matter  of  three 
weeks'  time  between  departure  and  arrival.  Empires 
have  been  won  and  lost  in  that  time. 

Once  we  arrived  in  France  we  found  that  all  util- 
ities such  as  docks,  railways,  and  telephone  and  tele- 
graph lines  were  being  used  by  others,  principally  the 
French,  but  in  many  instances  by  both  the  French  and 
the  British.  Instantly  there  came  the  inevitable  and 
peaceful  conflict  with  French  laws.  If  you  have  ever 
tried  to  do  anything  "official"  in  France  you  can  at 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  27 

once  appreciate  the  tangle  of  red  tape  and  the  maze 
of  complications  into  which  we  were  plunged. 

Then,  too,  there  was  the  great  difficulty  of  operat- 
ing in  a  foreign  country  whose  language  and  customs 
were  unknown  to  the  great  majority  of  our  men. 
Finally  we  had  to  expand  our  little  peace  organisa- 
tion into  an  immense  and  elastic  overseas  expedition 
that  would  take  its  full  part  in  helping  to  defeat  the 
mightiest  of  all  military  machines  that  had  been  forty 
years  in  the  making  and  which  was  still  going  strong. 

Such  was  the  seemingly  impossible  task  that  con- 
fronted us  in  April,  1917.  To-day  the  impossible  has 
been  made  possible.  The  American  Army  that  holds 
its  well-won  place  in  the  battle  line  of  freedom;  the 
unbroken  chain  of  supply  and  transport  behind, 
stretching  from  Alsace-Lorraine  to  San  Francisco,  is 
the  answer  that  Yankee  resource,  energy  and  patriot- 
ism have  made  to  the  Great  Call.  How  has  it  been 
done? 

Come  with  me  to  the  little  French  town  which 
houses  the  General  Headquarters  of  the  A.  E.  F.  and 
I  will  show  you  both  the  mainspring  and  the  inspira- 
tion. In  a  simple  office,  in  a  weather-beaten  build- 
ing that  flies  the  American  and  French  flags  at  its 
gate  and  whose  stone  walls  have  echoed  with  the 
swords  and  spurs  of  many  generations  of  French  sol- 
diers in  the  making,  sits  the  erect,  serious,  keen-eyed 
man  whose  broad  shoulders  bear  the  chief  burden 
of  responsibility  of  our  armies  abroad.  General 
Pershing  foresaw  what  would  and  did  happen.  "To 
foresee,  "  said  the  French  philosopher,  "is  to  rule." 


28  S.  O.  S. 

In  this  military  statesmanship  lies  our  safety  and  our 
success  in  France.  It  was  his  grave  eyes  that  beheld 
the  vision  of  American  opportunity,  and  it  has  had  a 
rich  fulfilment.  The  simple  reason  why  we  met  every 
extraordinary  and  unexpected  demand  upon  us  is  that 
our  facilities  are  so  elastic  as  to  be  capable  of  almost 
indefinite  expansion. 

Had  they  been  rigid — that  is,  limited  to  the  esti- 
mate of  our  original  overseas  force — we,  and  prob- 
ably the  whole  Allied  Cause,  might  have  been  lost. 
As  it  was  they  stood  the  well-nigh  incredible  strain 
in  amazing  fashion  and  reveal  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  both  as  Seer  and  Soldier. 

Let  us  go  back  and  see  just  what  happened.  When 
the  "C.  in  C,"  as  the  head  of  the  army  is  called,  ar- 
rived in  France  in  June,  1917,  the  war  situation  was 
apparently  satisfactory.  The  British  were  well  estab- 
lished up  the  Somme;  everywhere  the  French  held 
their  own;  the  Italians  were  pushing  confidently  on. 
An  optimist  would  have  said:  "All  is  well/'  The 
programme  of  our  expeditionary  force,  then  set  for 
500,000  men,  seemed  to  be  ample  for  all  needs. 

But  General  Pershing  saw  beyond  the  security  of 
that  hopeful  hour.  Russia  had  begun  to  crack  and  in 
the  Slav  disintegration  that  followed  lay  disaster  for 
us  all.  France  was  bled  white ;  England  was  combing 
out  her  man-power;  America  was  the  last,  the  only, 
reserve.  The  final  brunt  would  be  hers. 

So  this  far-seeing  chieftain  looked  ahead  to  the 
contingency  that  might  arise,  not  in  a  year  but  in 
two  or  three.  How  wise  was  his  foresight  was  amply 


Dear   J  -    ^eu.. 

Cj.^r.anier-in-Ciij.ef  to  write  a  bce-i  ro^a.* ..,_. 

the  3.0. 3.,   sinllax  to  hie  wjrk  oovarin^;  t^e  ~; 
British  Aray.     The  varioxie  chapters   irill  BOOB 
in  the  Saturday  livening  Post. 

Pleaso  afford  hia'ail  noces^ary  faj.. 
uot  of  his  invs3ti£atioa. 


Cocmanding  General, 

S.O.S.,   American  E.   F. 


FAC-SIMILE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  ORDER  ISSUED  AT  AMERICAN  GENERAL 
HEADQUARTERS  AUTHORIZING  MR.  MARCOSSON'S  INVESTIGATION  OF 
THE  S.  O.  S. 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  29 

proved  by  subsequent  events.  In  less  than  twelve 
months  from  the  time  of  his  advent  Italy's  reverse  had 
been  registered,  Russia,  prey  to  anarchy  and  mis- 
guided uplift,  had  made  her  obscene  peace  with  the 
Kaiser;  the  German  offensive  had  swept  the  British 
down  the  Somme ;  once  more  Paris  was  the  target  of 
attack. 

Out  of  that  encircling  gloom  flashed  Lloyd  George's 
famous  "Hurry,  hurry"  appeal  to  America,  and  it  was 
not  sent  in  vain.  Like  those  hosts  of  the  'Sixties  who 
marched  to  Father  Abraham  "Five  hundred  thousand 
strong,"  the  Yankees  came  sailing  over  the  sea.  Every 
schedule  was  quadrupled;  all  original  estimates  and 
plans  went  by  the  board.  A  steady  stream  of  khaki 
poured  into  France.  What  was  more,  it  was  debarked, 
supplied  and  rushed  up  the  line  and  all  because  the  sup- 
ply and  transport  machine,  conceived  in  foresight  and 
builded  in  wisdom,  met  the  test.  It  made  Chateau- 
Thierry,  Saint  Mihiel  and  all  that  has  followed  pos- 
sible. 

Those  heroes  of  pick  and  spade  and  derrick  who 
had  toiled  in  port  and  supply  depot  had  their  full 
hour  of  compensation.  They  saw  the  original  army 
of  500,000  swell  into  a  million  and  then  reach  far 
beyond,  and  no  man  went  unfed. 

The  machine  which  began  with  bare  hands  and  stout 
hearts  has  grown  to  a  giant  with  limbs  of  titanic 
strength.  It  is  not  only  working  for  this  war  but  for 
generations  unborn.  In  the  scope  and  permanency  of 
its  structure  lies  the  real  earnest  of  our  endeavour 
in  France.  Its  parallel  is  the  mass  of  stone  and 


30  S.  O.  S. 

concrete  war  buildings  rising  in  Washington  not 
reared  for  to-day  but  for  the  future. 

Just  before  I  started  on  my  investigation  of  the 
American  army  I  spent  the  night  with  old  friends 
at  British  General  Headquarters  in  France.  We  dis- 
cussed our  immense  supply  preparations  which  inter- 
ested them  immensely.  Suddenly  a  grizzled  General 
with  a  foot  of  service  ribbons  on  the  breast  of  his  tunic 
said : 

"Your  people  are  working  on  the  theory  that  the 
war  is  going  on  indefinitely.  It's  amazing." 

He  hit  the  American  nail  on  the  head,  for  this  is 
precisely  what  we  are  doing  in  France.  The  Domain 
of  Supply  and  Transport  which  we  are  about  to  ex- 
plore is  a  vast  business  institution  that,  while  dedicated 
to  war,  is  bound  to  have  a  tremendous  significance 
with  peace. 

The  tiny  acorn  which  burst  forth  as  the  American 
Expeditionary  Forces  was  planted  in  an  environment 
that  was  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  forest  of  effort 
that  it  has  produced  to-day.  In  that  precarious  June 
of  last  year  when  General  Pershing  and  his  handful 
of  fellow  officers  faced  the  task  of  creating  a  system 
of  combat  and  supply  overseas,  the  offices  of  the  expe- 
dition were  in  a  modest  building  in  the  Rue  Constan- 
tine  in  Paris.  Almost  within  the  shadow  of  the  stately 
and  gilded  dome  of  the  Invalides  which  shelters  the 
dust  of  the  great  Napoleon  was  born  the  whole  organ- 
isation which  has  become  a  prop  of  the  war.  Here 
first  of  all  the  General  Staff  in  France  was  created. 
Later,  in  a  back  room  and  at  a  conference  presided 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  31 

over  by  the  Commander-in-Chief  in  person,  what  is 
to-day  the  Services  of  Supply  came  into  being.  It  was 
not  originally  known  by  its  present  comprehensive 
designation.  It  had  various  titles  and  functions.  Its 
career  is  studded  with  picturesque  happenings  and 
striking  personalities,  and  they  are  all  part  of  our 
narrative. 

After  four  years  of  war  the  average  reader  need 
not  be  told  that  in  any  army  in  the  field  there  are  two 
separate  and  distinct  organisations.  One  is  that  sec- 
tion which  fights  and  which  is  known  as  the  Combat 
Army;  the  other  is  the  equally  necessary  wing  which 
mans  the  Lines  of  Communications  and  in  which  Sup- 
ply and  Transport  have  their  all-important  part. 
Down  these  lines  flow  the  life  sustenance  of  the  fight- 
ing man. 

At  that  first  meeting  in  Paris  to  which  I  have  just 
referred  was  born  an  institution,  typically  American 
in  character  and  which  is  the  very  rock  on  which  our 
whole  activity  abroad  is  reared.  It  grew  out  of  the 
peculiar  handicaps  under  which  our  overseas  expedi- 
tion laboured  from  the  start.  Up  to  that  time  the  most 
difficult  supply  and  transport  problem  of  the  war  was 
Britain's.  She  had  to  carry  troops  and  supplies  to 
Mesopotamia,  Salonika,  Egypt  and  France  and  main- 
tain those  forces.  But  compared  with  our  require- 
ments and  problems  abroad  this  was  not  so  overwhelm- 
ingly difficult,  because  the  great  mass  of  her  overseas 
troops  were  in  France  and  never  fighting  more  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  at  the  outside  from  their 
home  ports.  The  Australians,  to  be  sure,  had  to 


32  S.  O.  S. 

come  five  thousand  miles  from  their  native  bush  and 
range,  but  they  only  carry  their  initial  supplies.  Eng- 
land furnishes  the  rest  from  her  home  and  other  de- 
pots. Although  a  considerable  portion  of  the  British 
army  supply  is  gathered  from  different  parts  of  the 
world  and  is  subject  to  the  sea  menace,  she  was  not 
absolutely  dependent  upon  these  foreign  sources. 

With  America  it  was  different.  We  were  up  against 
the  stagger 'ng  proposition  of  not  only  conveying  all 
our  troops  over  three  thousand  miles  of  danger-ridden 
sea  but  likewise  carrying  the  great  bulk  of  our  food, 
equipment  and  munitions  the  same  way.  Our  system 
of  supply  had  to  be  break-down  proof.  How  to  ac- 
complish this  was  the  proposition  put  up  to  that  group 
of  pioneers  of  America  abroad  who  sat  around  the 
table  in  that  dingy  back  room  of  the  Rue  Constantine. 
No  wonder  they  thought  of  the  intrepid  little  soldier 
whose  dust  reposed  just  across  the  way  and  who  like- 
wise had  his  troubles  with  food  and  transport  many, 
many  miles  from  home. 

These  men  knew  that  long  before  they  could  even 
dream  of  joining  the  smoke-enveloped  battle-line  of 
democracy  they  must  settle  the  all-important  question 
of  a  continuous  subsistence  supply.  Emergency — 
that  unfailing  speeder-up  of  idea  and  event — came  to 
their  rescue.  At  that  round  table  was  devised  the 
remarkable  plan  known  as  Automatic  Supply  which 
is  the  essence  of  our  whole  overseas  system.  Just  as 
printing  is  the  art  preservative  of  art,  so  is  this  scheme 
the  means  preservative  of  our  lives  and  our  fortunes 
abroad. 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  33 

To  grasp  it  fully  you  must  understand  the  very 
obvious  fact  that  in  war  a  reserve  of  food  and  sup- 
plies is  all  essential.  That  ancient  and  familiar  saying 
that  armies  fight  on  their  stomachs  is  as  true  to-day 
in  the  era  of  machine-gun,  poison  gas,  wireless,  aero- 
planes and  tanks  as  it  was  when  cave  men  fought  with 
stone  weapons.  The  strength  of  the  army  food  re- 
serve depends  upon  the  distance  of  the  fighting  force 
from  its  base.  With  the  British  Expeditionary  Force 
the  so-called  fixed  food  reserve  is  thirty  days.  This 
means  that  all  the  huge  supply  depots  in  France  and 
England  (I  shall  use  the  British  Expeditionary  Force 
in  France  for  the  contrast),  a  quantity  of  food,  fuel, 
and  forage  equal  to  thirty  days'  consumption  by  man 
and  beast  is  maintained.  No  matter  what  happens 
this  reserve  must  be  kept  up.  It  is  the  insurance 
against  enemy  action,  break  down  or  delay  in  trans- 
port— any  of  the  many  emergencies  that  rise  up  in  war 
and  knock  down  the  best  laid  plans  and  incidentally 
destroy  precious  supplies. 

But  England  in  France,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  is  only  a  comparatively  short  distance  from  her 
home  reserves.  A  short  trip  across  the  English  Chan- 
nel can  rectify  any  dislocation  in  her  food  communica- 
tions. What  were  we  to  do  three  thousand  miles  from 
our  home  ports  and  factories? 

No  one  could  tell  then,  any  more  than  they  can 
tell  now,  just  what  the  submarine  would  do.  Not  be- 
ing a  heedless  optimist  General  Pershing,  together 
with  his  advisers,  took  no  chances.  They  assumed  the 
worst  would  happen,  so  they  framed  up  the  famous 


34  S.  O.  S. 

plan  which  I  have  referred  to  as  the  Automatic  Sup- 
ply. This  provides  the  unfailing  and  yet  flexible 
meal  ticket  of  the  A.  E.  F. 

By  this  procedure  our  whole  food  supply — and  for 
that  matter  all  munitions  and  supplies,  even  a  whole 
railway  system  from  spike  to  station — renews  itself 
automatically,  and  therefore  without  the  formality  of 
special  requisitions  for  stores.  In  the  simplest  way 
this  is  the  way  the  system  works: 

For  every  unit  of  25,000  troops  that  goes  to  France 
— whether  they  arrive  in  one  convoy  or  in  detached 
groups — a  four  months'  supply  of  food  is  also  sent  at 
the  same  time  from  the  United  States.  What  amounts 
to  a  thirty  days'  supply  goes  with  the  men  while  a 
ninety  days'  reserve  is  shipped  coincidentally.  This 
ninety  days'  reserve  becomes  the  backbone  of  our  ef- 
fort. It  may  not  land  at  the  same  port  as  the  unit 
for  which  it  is  designated  but  it  reaches  France  and 
becomes  part  of  the  general  food  reserve.  No  matter 
how  many  units  of  25,000  men  may  leave  the  United 
States  this  ninety  days'  reserve  becomes  their  travel- 
ling companion,  near  or  distant.  It  is  on  the  ocean  at 
the  same  time. 

By  making  this  reserve  cover  ninety  days  we  have 
trebled  the  British  quantity  and  taken  into  considera- 
tion what  those  wise  men  who  framed  the  system 
had  in  mind,  namely,  the  very  worst  that  the  sub- 
marine could  do.  The  destruction  of  a  whole  month's 
or  even  two  months'  supply  could  not  mean  disaster 
for  us. 

This  process  is  technically  known  as  the  Initial  Sup- 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  S.  O.  S.  35 

ply.  It  means  that  with  the  Automatic  Supply  which 
I  shall  describe  in  a  moment,  sufficient  food,  with  the 
exception  of  fresh  beef  and  a  few  minor  ration  com- 
ponents, is  constantly  kept  in  France  to  last  our  whole 
overseas  force  four  months. 

But  troops  must  eat  and  at  the  same  time  the  integ- 
rity of  this  ninety  days'  reserve  must  be  maintained. 
How  is  it  done?  Here  is  where  the  Automatic  Sup- 
ply comes  in.  Every  month  there  is  shipped  from  the 
United  States  sufficient  food  to  feed  our  overseas 
force  for  thirty  days.  It  is  in  units  of  the  needs  of 
25,000  men.  This  might  be  called  the  standing  order 
of  the  army  and  is  for  current  consumption.  It 
moves  like  clock-work  every  thirty  days.  It  is  pre- 
cisely as  if  a  housekeeper  had  left  a  permanent  order 
with  her  grocer  to  send  her  on  the  first  day  of  every 
month  enough  flour,  tinned  goods,  salt,  pepper,  vege- 
tables— in  fact  all  her  kitchen  needs — for  thirty  days 
and  he  scrupulously  followed  instructions.  If  he  is 
a  good  grocer  she  never  has  to  renew  the  order  save 
when  her  family  increases.  The  Acting  Quartermaster 
General  at  Washington,  Brigadier-General  R.  E. 
Wood,  is  the  good  grocer ;  he  never  misses  a  shipment 
to  France.  For  every  unit  of  25,000  men  that  set  foot 
upon  France  he  simply  chalks  up  another  increase  to 
that  immense  standing  order.  Nothing  can  be  sim- 
pler than  this  system. 

All  supplies  are  not,  and  cannot  be  automatic.  Every 
hour  of  the  day  and  night  in  France  some  emergency 
leads  to  unexpected  demands.  Take  Ordnance.  A 
big  push  may  use  up  an  immense  amount  of  ammuni- 


36  S.  O.  S. 

tion  and  cut  into  the  fixed  reserve  which  is  based  on 
the  daily  needs  of  all  guns.  Take  Construction.  The 
unexpected  advent  of  troops  in  certain  regions  who 
need  barracks,  together  with  the  demand  made  on 
the  light  and  standard  gauge  railway  for  extensions, 
may  consume  material  far  beyond  the  widest  provi- 
sion made  in  advance.  All  this  must  be  renewed  and 
at  once,  and  it  is  done  through  so-called  Exceptional 
Requisitions,  or  Demands,  as  they  are  called  by  the 
British.  The  articles  thus  obtained  are  termed  Ex- 
ceptional Supplies,  and  are  only  sent  in  response  to 
a  special  requisition  made  on  the  War  Department  by 
the  Supply  Service  in  the  field. 

Here  in  brief  is  the  crux  of  our  supply  system  in 
France.  An  extraordinary  and  unprecedented  remedy 
which  has  proved  to  be  not  only  submarine  proof  but 
has  stood  up  against  every  tremendous  demand  made 
upon  it.  With  a  knowledge  of  this  bulwark  of  the 
soldier's  stomach — the  fundamental  war  precaution — 
we  can  now  proceed  to  the  story  of  the  complete  army 
organisation  in  France  which  is  necessary  before  we 
can  explain  the  concrete  workings  of  the  Services  of 
Supply. 


II — The  Business  of  War 


IF  those  meetings  of  General  Pershing  and  his  first 
colleagues  in  the  Rue  Constantine  in  Paris  had 
only  hatched  out  the  Initial  and  Automatic  Sup- 
ply systems  they  would  have  been  historic.    But  they 
did  much  more.    In  the  creation  of  the  General  Staff 
of  the  A.  E.  F.  they  laid  the  foundation  of  the  whole 
close-knit  combat,  supply,  and  transport  scheme  which 
enabled  the  A.  E.  F.  to  assume  its  full  share  of  the 
terrific  burden  of  war. 

If  you  know  anything  about  war  you  also  know 
that  everything  radiates  from  the  Staff.  Individual 
initiative  is  only  possible  or  effective  in  the  emergency 
of  battle  or  with  a  sudden  breakdown  in  transport. 
The  successful  conduct  of  modern  war  is  the  result 
of  team-work,  co-ordination,  the  fitting  together  of 
many  units.  It  is  the  product  of  many  closely-at- 
tuned minds.  The  real  and  unadvertised  work  of 
war  therefore  is  done  behind  closed  doors.  Its  secrecy 
and  silence  are  in  contrast  with  the  crash  and  carnage 
of  the  tragic  tumult  it  produces. 

Let  us  take  the  General  Staff  at  General  Headquar- 
ters first.  Although  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  fight- 
ing, we  must  understand  its  functions,  because  they 
are  duplicated  to  a  large  extent  at  the  Headquarters 


38  S.  O.  S. 

of  the  Services  of  Supply.  This  is  as  good  a  place 
as  any  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  in  France  we  have 
two  absolutely  separate  armies,  with  entirely  separate 
and  completely  equipped  headquarters  from  a  Com- 
manding General  down.  One  is  the  General  Head- 
quarters presided  over  by  General  Pershing,  who  is 
the  supreme  chief  in  France  and  whose  job  is  fight- 
ing; the  other  is  the  Headquarters  of  the  Services  of 
Supply  whose  job  is  to  sustain  and  equip  those  fight- 
ers. Each  of  these  Headquarters  has  a  General  Staff 
similar  in  organisation  although  the  body  at  General 
Headquarters  is  senior  in  authority  and  creates  the 
larger  policies  which  the  Staff  of  the  S.  O.  S.  inter- 
prets. 

The  staff  at  G.  H.  Q.  has  five  sections  devoted  to 
Administration,  Intelligence,  Operations  (which  is 
fighting),  Co-ordination  and  Training.  Originally 
these  sections  were  known  by  these  respective  activi- 
ties. Subsequently  the  designations  were  changed. 

Administration  became  Gi.     This  is  the  Wholesaler 

/ 

and  gets  tonnage  and  personnel  to  France  and  also 
purchases  in  France.  Intelligence,  now  known  as  G2, 
deals  with  all  information  about  the  enemy.  It  has 
ramified  functions  that  range  from  censorship  to 
counter-espionage.  Operations,  now  G3,  employs 
troops  in  the  field.  Co-ordination,  which  is  G^,  han- 
dles and  distributes  what  Gi  procures.  But  it  does 
much  more.  It  is  the  supreme  standardiser,  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  agencies  that  we  have  devised  in 
the  war.  You  will  hear  a  great  deal  about  it  as  we 
proceed  with  this  narrative.  Training  (which  has  be- 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  39 

come  GS)  trains  the  personnel  which  Gi  gets  to 
France.  Here  is  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  General  Staff, 
which  is  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Business  of 
War.  All  these  sections  are  tied  up  to  Chief  of  Staff, 
who  is  the  link  between  the  work  of  the  army  and  the 
Commander-in-Chief. 

The  Staff  meets  every  morning  in  the  office  of  the 
Chief  of  Staff,  who  at  G.  H.  Q.  is  Major  General 
James  W.  McAndrew,  just  as  the  directors  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  used  to  assemble  daily  at  26 
Broadway.  It  enables  them  to  keep  abreast  with  what 
is  going  on.  What  is  equally  important,  every  head 
of  a  department  knows  what  the  other  heads  are  do- 
ing. In  this  knowledge  lies  power  in  war.  This  war, 
more  than  any  other,  has  proved  the  value  of  co-ordi- 
nation. It  was  not  until  Marshal  Foch  became  in  fact 
the  head  of  a  United  Allied  Command  that  we  made 
definite  and  what  seems  to  be  permanent  progress. 
Up  to  that  time  every  big  Allied  army  went  practically 
"on  its  own/'  and  the  Germans  wisely  capitalised  this 
lack  of  perfect  team-work.  The  Germans  have  always 
excelled  in  Staff  work. 

With  a  small  army  this  elaborate  staff  system  is  not 
necessary.  The  heads  of  the  various  sections,  that  is, 
Operations,  Supply,  Transport  and  Intelligence,  can 
go  direct  to  their  Commander-in-Chief  and  talk  affairs 
over.  But  when  that  Commander  is  at  the  head  of 
millions  of  men  spread  out  over  Lines  of  Communica- 
tion six  hundred  miles  long  this  is  impossible.  He 
must  have  understudies  to  digest  and  co-ordinate  the 
routine  problems,  dispose  of  the  general  Business  of 


40  S.  O.  S. 

War,  and  leave  him  free  to  create  and  deal  with  the 
larger  measures.  The  various  sections  thus  become 
miniature  minds  of  the  "C.  in  C."  who  think  and  plan 
and  sometimes  execute  for  him.  By  an  elaborate  and 
comprehensive  system  of  condensed  diaries  he  knows 
just  what  they  are  doing  each  day. 

This  Staff  system  at  G.  H.  Q.  and  its  functions 
are  duplicated  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  Services  of 
Supply  except  that  only  Gi,  G2  and  G4  are  repre- 
sented. The  S.  O.  S.  has  nothing  to  do  with  fighting, 
therefore  it  can  dispense  with  G3  and  G$.  Its  main 
sections  are  Gi  and  G4. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  directing  force  that  set  up  the 
America  in  France.  Originally  it  was  housed  in 
Paris.  As  our  troops  began  to  arrive  and  our  scope 
of  supply  widened  those  buildings  in  the  French  cap- 
ital proved  insufficient.  We  needed  more  executive 
elbow  room.  Besides,  it  was  becoming  more  and 
more  important  that  General  Pershing  should  be  up 
where  his  army  was  beginning  to  assemble.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1917,  we  established  our  General  Headquarters 
at  Chaumont,  a  French  town  in  the  North.  There — 
and  for  the  first  time  in  the  war — the  Stars  and  Stripes 
were  unfurled  almost  within  sound  of  the  guns.  We 
had  entered  the  Great  Struggle  at  last! 

I  went  to  those  Headquarters  not  long  after  they 
had  been  opened.  The  drowsy  little  town  still  blinked 
at  the  unaccustomed  sight  of  Americans  in  uniform; 
our  troops  were  few;  there  was  a  sense  of  newness 
and  crudeness.  General  Pershing  and  his  colleagues 
were  feeling  their  way  through  the  enormous  respon- 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  41 

sibilities  that  hemmed  them  in.  Not  so  many  miles 
away  those  pioneer  divisions  who  blazed  our  way  to 
France  were  shivering  in  their  first  billets. 

I  went  back  last  summer.  The  one-time  sleepy 
town  was  a  bee-hive ;  the  brown  of  our  khaki  vied  with 
the  verdure  of  the  hillsides  around;  the  roads  every- 
where were  alive  with  our  transport;  the  General 
Headquarters  had  a  seasoned  and  business-like  look; 
we  had  spilled  our  blood  on  the  soil  of  France;  you 
got  the  thrill  and  the  sense  of  actual  war  participation. 
In  the  same  office  where  I  had  seen  him  before  sat 
that  grave-eyed  Commander-in-Chief,  still  modest, 
still  unassuming,  still  consecrated  to  the  task  which 
in  the  intervening  twelve  months  had  made  him  a 
world  figure. 

In  those  General  Headquarters,  now  the  nerve  cen- 
tre of  our  fighting,  the  Services  of  Supply  as  at  pres- 
ent constituted  were  organised.  When  General  Persh- 
ing  moved  to  the  North  the  Chiefs  of  Supply  event- 
ually followed.  They  were  marshalled  under  the  head 
of  "Lines  of  Communication."  As  our  armies  grew 
and  took  their  place  in  the  line  the  need  of  a  concen- 
trated supply  establishment  became  evident.  It  was 
felt — and  wisely — that  with  our  swift  expansion 
G.  H.  Q.  should  be  free  to  devote  itself  to  operations. 

General  Pershing  therefore  appointed  a  Board  con- 
sisting of  (I  use  their  present  ranks)  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral Johnson  Hagood,  Colonel  Avery  Andrews,  Briga- 
dier General  Frank  McCoy,  Brigadier  General  Robert 
Davis  and  Major  Pierce  Wetherell,  to  devise  a  plan  to 
this  end.  The  net  result  was  that  the  Supply  Depart- 


42  S.  O.  S. 

ments  were  divorced  from  G.  H.  Q.  and  moved  to 
Tours.  General  Headquarters  were  now  free  to  con- 
centrate on  fighting  while  in  that  charming  little  city 
on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  in  the  heart  of  the  Chateau 
country,  where  Balzac  and  Rabelais  were  born ;  where 
Joan  of  Arc  came  in  shining  armour  in  the  crowded 
hour  of  her  triumph  and  where,  oddly  enough,  the 
Hun  of  other  days  got  his  final  reverse,  became  the 
capital  of  the  Domain  of  Supply. 

It  was  early  this  year  when  the  American  flag  was 
officially  broken  out  at  Tours  over  a  quadrangle  of 
French  barracks  sentinelled  by  trees  and  with  the 
usual  large  parade  ground  in  the  centre.  But  it  was 
a  much  larger  kingdom  than  Supply  and  Transport 
that  took  up  its  abode  there.  Under  reorganisation 
the  Services  of  Supply  annexed  the  services  of  Quar- 
termaster Corps,  Ordnance,  Gas,  Air,  Engineering, 
Construction,  Forestry,  Railways  and  Roads,  Medical, 
Mechanical  Transport,  Signals  and  Communications, 
Postal  and  Express,  War  Risk  Insurance;  in  fact, 
every  detail  that  contributed  to  the  upkeep,  the  safety, 
the  combat,  and  the  renewal  of  the  armies  in  the  field. 
Even  Graves  Registration,  the  chronicle  of  that  last 
sad  chapter  in  the  life  of  the  soldier,  found  refuge 
under  its  broad  and  comprehending  wings. 

The  first  Commanding  General  was  Major  General 
F.  J.  Kernan,  who  developed  the  whole  scheme  of 
what  was  for  a  brief  time  called  the  Services  of  the 
Rear,  and  which  is  now  the  unshakable  "S.  O.  S.," 
one  of  the  prides,  even  as  it  is  also  the  backbone,  of 
the  whole  American  Expeditionary  Force.  To  tell 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  43 

its  story  therefore  is  to  describe  the  activities  of  every- 
thing American  in  France  except  that  which  hap- 
pens in  trench  and  field. 

Nowhere  in  this  war  will  you  find  such  a  self- 
contained  Empire  as  is  presented  by  the  Amer- 
ican Services  of  Supply,  indeed — the  whole  A.  E.  F. 
It  is  unique  in  the  annals  of  military  organisation. 
With  the  French  there  is  always  Paris  to  suggest  or 
to  change ;  with  the  British,  the  War  Office  in  White- 
hall lies  only  a  few  hours'  journey  across  the  Chan- 
nel and  many  miles  of  red  tape  join  it  to  General 
Headquarters.  But  with  the  American  force  Wash- 
ington is  thousands  of  miles  away  in  fact  and  in  domi- 
nation. The  distance  is  too  great  and  time  in  war  is 
too  precious  to  refer  everything  to  the  home  powers 
that  be.  They  have  wisely  reposed  a  confidence  in  the 
leader  of  our  armies  abroad  that  has  been  amply 
justified  by  his  achievements.  Here  you  have  the  anti- 
dote against  the  costly  disasters,  bred  by  the  political 
interference  that  hampered  great  American  generals 
from  Washington  down  the  line  through  Grant  to 
Shafter. 

Geographically  the  Services  of  Supply  includes  all 
Continental  France  and  Great  Britain  for  our  supply 
tentacles  have  now  spread  out  in  many  directions. 
The  domain  is  divided  into  nine  Sections  and  two  in- 
dependent Districts,  which  are  Tours  and  Paris.  With 
one  exception  (England)  all  these  sections  are  in 
France. 

Each  of  the  French  ports  that  we  use  is  the  nucleus 
or  capital  of  a  Section  which  also  includes  some  of 


44  S.  O.  S. 

the  adjacent  territory.  Midway  between  the  coast 
and  the  front  is  the  Huge  Intermediate  Section,  while 
still  nearer  the  fighting  line  is  the  Advance  Section. 
They  are  all  joined  by  American  built  and  American 
operated  communications. 

In  examining  the  organisation  of  these  Sections 
you  get  the  first  hint  of  that  self-sufficiency  which 
is  such  an  outstanding  feature  of  our  army  structure 
abroad.  Every  Section  is  in  command  of  a  General 
who  has  the  necessary  Administrative  and  Technical 
Staffs.  He  has  absolute  control  of  all  matters  of  dis- 
cipline, police,  and  sanitation  in  his  bailiwick  and  has 
general  supervision  over  all  technical  activities  car- 
ried on  there.  It  is  a  little  sovereign  State.  If  a  ques- 
tion arises  that  touches  or  involves  a  neighbouring  Sec- 
tion it  becomes,  like  matters  of  Interstate  Commerce 
in  the  United  States,  a  question  of  Federal  jurisdic- 
tion and  goes  up  to  the  Commanding  General  of  the 
Services  of  Supply  who  is  the  Chief  of  all  these  sub- 
sidiary Generals. 

It  is  just  as  if  we  had  established  a  United  States 
of  Supply  overseas  with  Tours  as  the  Washington. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Tours  is  the  American  capital 
of  France.  The  Commanding  General  of  the  S.  O.  S. 
is  a  sort  of  transplanted  President  whose  only  higher 
authority  is  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force  and  whose  Staff  Officer  he  is. 

Looking  at  the  organisation  from  another  angle 
(familiar  to  most  Americans),  you  can  see  it  in  terms 
of  the  military  arrangement  of  the  United  States  in 
peace  times.  Following  this  analogy,  the  Headquar- 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  45 

ters  of  the  S.  O.  S.  at  Tours  corresponds  to  the  War 
Department  at  Washington.  The  different  Sections 
are  like  the  various  Departments  such  as  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  East,  the  Southern  Department  or  the 
Department  of  the  Southeast.  Each  of  these  Depart- 
ments in  the  United  States  has  a  Commanding  Gen- 
eral who  corresponds  to  the  General  in  charge  of  one 
of  our  foreign  Sections.  The  two  independent  Dis- 
tricts (Tours  and  Paris)  bear  the  same  relation  to 
the  whole  overseas  organisation  that  the  United  States 
Military  Academy  at  West  Point  bears  to  the  home 
structure,  which  comes  directly  under  the  authority 
of  the  War  Department. 

In  addition  to  control  over  the  Generals  of  the  vari- 
ous Sections  the  Commanding  General  of  the  Services 
of  Supply  exercises  a  stewardship  over  the  Chief  of 
every  Service  that  makes  up  his  immense  domain. 
The  head  and  staff  of  all  Departments,  save  Light 
Railways,  which  are  a  necessary  adjunct  of  fighting, 
are  quartered  in  and  about  that  picturesque  quadran- 
gle in  Tours,  and  are  accessible  at  any  hour  of  the 
day  or  night  for  reference  or  discussion. 

Such  is  the  Supply  World  over  which  Major  Gen- 
eral James  G.  Harbord,  who  succeeded  General  Ker- 
nan  as  Commanding  General  of  the  S.  O.  S.,  presides 
to-day.  He  is  big  of  bone,  smooth  of  face,  alive  with 
humour — a  self-made  soldier  risen  from  the  ranks 
and  with  a  trail  of  active  service  that  stretches  from 
the  Philippines  to  the  bloody  fields  of  France.  There 
is  no  mistaking  his  power  and  punch.  It  is  written 
in  a  square  and  unyielding  jaw  and  in  a  determination 


46  S.  O.  S. 

that  the  Germans  learned  to  their  cost  when  his  divi- 
sion helped  to  block  their  way  to  Paris  last  July.  It 
was  as  Chief  of  Staff  to  General  Pershing  in  those 
heart-breaking  days  when  first  we  set  up  military 
shop  abroad  that  Harbord  wrote  his  wisdom  and  his 
foresight  into  our  overseas  preparation.  He  can  lead 
and  he  can  rule.  He  is  the  highest  type  of  the  Sol- 
dier-Administrator. Study  his  task  and  you  find 
that,  as  the  slogan  of  the  S.  O.  S.  well  says,  "All  the 
fighting  is  not  done  at  the  front." 

He  operates  in  precisely  the  same  way  that  General 
Pershing  holds  forth  at  Headquarters,  although  his 
task  is  somewhat  more  varied  and  complex.  The 
Commander-in-Chief  is  mainly  concerned,  so  far  as 
active  duties  are  concerned,  with  fighting.  The  tools 
of  this  bloody  trade — mainly  men  and  munitions — are 
placed  at  his  disposal.  General  Harbord,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  to  deal  with  the  intricate  problems  of  the 
procurement,  distribution  and  maintenance  of  these 
tools  of  war.  Every  ton  of  freight  and  every  Amer- 
ican soldier  that  enters  France  must  come  through 
one  of  the  ports  under  his  jurisdiction.  They  must 
be  classified,  stored  or  moved  to  their  proper  station. 
An  endless  chain  of  facilities  and  a  complete  and 
sleepless  control  and  supervision  are  required. 

Yet  every  morning  there  is  laid  upon  his  desk  a 
sheet  of  paper  on  which  is  typed  the  total  number  of 
American  troops,  civilian  employes  and  prisoners  of 
war  in  every  Section  together  with  all  American 
troops  with  the  British  or  French;  the  total  number 
of  mouths  fed  by  the  A.  E.  F.;  the  precise  amount 


MAJOR  GENERAL  JAMES  G.  HARBORD 
Commanding  General   of  the  S.   O.   S.,  A.  E.  F. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  47 

of  food  on  hand  at  every  supply  depot  in  days  and 
rations;  the  number  of  animals  in  France  and  the 
quantity  of  hay,  oats  and  bran  available  for  them; 
the  exact  quantity  of  ammunition  in  reserve  in  terms 
of  specific  calibres;  the  total  ship  tonnage  unloaded 
the  day  before;  the  number  of  cars  loaded  for  ship- 
ment and  the  tonnage  in  them;  the  cargoes  on  every 
ship  in  every  port  we  use  in  France  or  England ;  and 
the  number  of  beds — empty  or  occupied — in  our  hos- 
pitals together  with  their  crisis  capacity  which  is  the 
total  hospitalisation  in  case  of  emergency.  In  a 
word,  this  marvellous  sheet,  called  the  Daily  State  of 
Supply,  is  the  up-to-the-hour  epitome  of  the  whole 
American  situation  in  France. 

More  than  this  General  Harbord,  who  is  not  tem- 
peramentally inclined  to  be  tied  to  a  desk,  spends 
three  or  four  days  every  week — sometimes  more — 
travelling  up  and  down  his  Supply  World  in  his  spe- 
cial train  which  has  sleeping,  dining  and  office  cars 
and  is  a  Headquarters  on  Wheels.  He  pops  in  on 
Section  Generals  at  their  offices;  makes  sudden  de- 
scents upon  loading  gangs  at  the  docks  or  construc- 
tion units  in  the  field.  He  can  stop  his  train  any- 
where in  France,  hitch  up  his  telephone  or  telegraph 
instruments  to  American  wires  strung  on  American 
poles  and  talk  to  General  Pershing  at  General  Head- 
quarters or  any  one  else  in  the  country.  How  are 
all  these  miracles  achieved? 

Like  the  rearing  of  our  whole  physical  structure  in 
France,  there  is  no  magic  or  mystery  about  it.  It 
all  results  from  the  fact  that  we  have  built  up  a 


48  S.  O.  S. 

compact  and  co-ordinated  system  for  the  conduct  of 
the  Services  of  Supply  that  is  distinctly  American  in 
swiftness  and  in  efficiency.  It  is  simply  part  of  the 
Business  of  War,  American  Brand.  To  a  war  that 
was  believed  to  express  the  last  word  in  science  and 
organisation  we  have  brought  new  wrinkles. 

General  Harbord's  freedom  of  action  and  the  re- 
markable grip  on  the  American  situation  in  France 
as  revealed  on  the  Daily  State  of  Supply  are  made 
possible  first  of  all  by  staff  work.  The  General  Staff 
of  the  Commanding  General  of  the  Services  of  Sup- 
ply, as  you  have  already  been  told,  only  includes  three 
Sections — Gi,  G2  and  G4 — because  he  has  no  prob- 
lems of  combat  or  training.  Each  of  these  Sections 
has  a  head,  designated  as  an  Assistant  Chief  of  Staff. 
In  charge  of  Gi  is  Col.  J.  B.  Cavanaugh;  in  command 
of  G2  is  Lieutenant  Colonel  Cabot  Ward  who  was  once 
Park  Commissioner  of  Greater  New  York  and  a  fine 
type  of  Reserve  or  Temporary  Officer  who  is  rendering 
conspicuous  service  in  the  war,  while  Col.  H.  C. 
Smither  is  at  the  head  of  that  all-useful  and  uni- 
versal G4. 

These  Assistant  Chiefs  in  turn  report  to  a  Chief  of 
Staff — Brigadier  General  Johnson  Hagood.  Clean  of 
limb  and  face  and  a  seasoned  veteran  of  field  and  staff 
service  despite  his  apparent  youth,  he  is  a  master  or- 
ganiser and  a  live  wire.  Under  his  stimulation  the 
General  Staff  takes  the  burden  of  routine  from  the 
shoulders  of  General  Harbord  just  as  the  Staff  at 
the  G.  H.  Q.  lightens  the  way  of  the  Comm^nder-m- 
Chief. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  49 

The  Assistants  are  in  constant  touch  with  the  Chief 
of  Staff  and  the  Commanding  General  himself.  It  is 
their  duty  to  act  in  his  name  on  the  bulk  of  the  execu- 
tive questions  that  arise,  and  they  are  many  and  com- 
plex. Hence  he  is  free  to  move  about  his  Kingdom. 
As  at  G.  H.  Q.,  you  have  a  small  group  of  understudy 
minds,  although  at  Tours  they  have  to  cope  with  an 
infinite  variety  of  subjects.  These  Assistants  are 
guided  in  making  decisions  by  their  knowledge  of  the 
expressed  desires  of  the  Commanding  General  with 
regard  to  policies.  Hence  they  must  be  men  of  keen 
intelligence  and  quick  to  grasp  significances. 

The  Section  of  G2  is  a  minor  one  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Services  of  Supply.  Therefore  the  bur- 
den of  the  Staff  labours  and  responsibilities  fall  upon 
the  Chief  of  Staff  and  the  heads  of  Gi  and  G4.  In 
general  terms — we  will  take  up  the  specific  work  later 
— Gi  has  authority  on  all  matters  of  administration, 
organisation  and  procurement  of  personnel  and  ma- 
terial from  the  United  States,  which  includes  the  vast 
tonnage  question,  while  G4  deals  with  construction, 
transportation  and  supply,  having  particularly  in  mind 
the  co-ordination  of  all  these  activities.  Both  Gi  and 
G4  connect  up  with  every  unit  in  the  Services  of 
Supply.  By  telegraph  and  telephone  and  daily  reports 
they  keep  in  constant  communication. 

Let  us  now  sit  in  with  the  General  Staff  at  its  daily 
morning  meeting.  You  will  get  such  a  demonstration 
of  snappy  team-work  as  to  make  you  sit  up.  The 
walls  of  the  office  of  the  Chief  of  Staff — like  those 
of  the  Commanding  General — reflect  the  spirit  of  our 


So  S.  O.  S. 

organisation  and  the  way  it  is  swung.  First  of  all 
you  will  see  the  great  Supply  Map  of  France  criss- 
crossed with  our  lines  of  communication.  At  first 
glance  you  may  think  that  this  is  a  picture  puzzle,  but 
on  closer  investigation  you  see  that  these  winding  and 
coloured  avenues  are  studded  with  symbols.  You  see 
stars  in  circles,  ships,  tents,  crosses,  coffee  pots,  build- 
ings. You  are  not  long  in  finding  out  what  they  mean. 
At  the  lower  left-hand  corner  is  a  key  to  the  puzzle. 
Each  symbol  has  a  meaning  all  its  own.  The  star 
in  a  circle  indicates  the  General  Headquarters;  the 
ship  shows  the  location  of  a  port  that  we  use;  the 
tent  is  the  site  of  an  instruction  camp;  the  black 
cross  reveals  a  base  hospital;  the  white  cross  a  rest 
station;  the  coffee  pot  a  coffee  station  for  travelling 
troops;  the  engine  a  locomotive  repair  shop;  the 
freight  car  a  car  erection  site;  the  bumper  a  railway 
regulation  yard ;  an  axe  a  forestry  camp ;  the  propeller 
an  aviation  camp;  the  bursting  shell  an  ammunition 
depot;  a  tiny  house  means  a  refrigerating  plant;  a 
black  naval  pennant  a  Section  Headquarters,  and  so 
on.  In  other  words,  you  can  look  at  this  map  and 
see  at  a  glance  the  scope  and  extent  of  all  our  activi- 
ties in  France,  and  what  and  where  they  are. 

On  the  wall  are  also  square  yards  of  charts  and 
diagrams  for  this  is  a  war  of  organisation  all  put 
down  on  specifications  and  blue  prints  long  before  a 
wheel  is  turned  or  a  shot  fired.  It  is  one  of  the  many 
sheets  Mars  has  taken  from  the  Book  of  Big  Busi- 
ness. I  have  seen  square  miles  of  army  diagrams 
in  this  war,  but  I  have  never  seen  any  that  were  more 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  51 

concrete  or  comprehensive  than  those  used  by  the 
Services  of  Supply.  Every  Service  has  its  master 
chart;  every  subordinate  section  has  its  own  little 
sheet.  Put  three  men  together  in  an  army  office  in 
France,  and  the  first  thing  they  do  is  to  create  a 
little  chart  of  their  organisation.  Nor  is  it  a  wasted 
effort.  A  great  master  of  American  industry  once 
said :  "Teach  with  the  eye/'  so  he  put  signs  all  over 
his  factory.  The  man  who  knows  just  what  he  has 
to  do  and  where  he  belongs  seldom  makes  mistakes. 
Hence  the  value  of  the  chart  in  the  Business  of  War. 

A  single  detail  in  General  Hagood's  office  reveals 
the  spirit  of  the  organisation  and  why  it  does  things. 
Over  the  large  clock  hangs  a  placard  containing  this 
inscription:  HURRY  UP— CEST  LA  GUERRE 
("It  is  the  war").  It  reminded  me  of  another  sign 
hung  up  somewhere  on  our  Lines  of  Communication 
by  a  bureau  chief  who  had  once  been  in  the  Coast 
Artillery.  It  proclaimed  the  warning  familiar  to  all 
coast  travellers:  "Cable  Crossing.  Do  Not  Anchor 
Here."  He  was  determined  that  his  visitors  should 
waste  none  of  his  time. 

General  Hagood  is  at  his  desk  every  morning  at 
eight  o'clock.  These  army  heads  are  early  to  work 
and  they  stay  late.  There  are  no  office  hours  in  The 
Business  of  War.  The  Chief  of  Staff  finds  on  his 
desk  what  is  officially  known  as  the  Diary.  It  is  a 
compact  resume,  a  complete  catalogue  of  S.  O.  S. 
events,  compiled  by  G4,  of  every  important  proceed- 
ing of  the  day  before.  This  Diary,  which  is  as  rep- 


52  S.  O.  S. 

resentative  a  piece  of  scientific  organisation  as  the 
Daily  Supply  State,  is  arranged  under  headings. 

Under  Troop  Movements  you  find:  "The  Nth 
Division  has  been  moved  to  the  X  Training  Camp"; 
under  Hospitalisation,  "The  construction  of  a  ten 
thousand  bed  hospital  has  been  ordered  at  Z" ;  under 
Quartermaster  Corps :  "The  Chief  Quartermaster  has 
been  ordered  to  turn  over  100  carloads  of  sugar  to 
the  French";  under  Remounts:  "Eight  thousand 
horses  are  now  at  the  Remount  Camp  at  W";  under 
Construction:  "Five  new  warehouses  have  been 
started  at  Blank  Supply  Depot,"  and  so  on  until  every 
item  of  large  value  has  been  epitomised  and  chron- 
icled. 

At  8.30  o'clock  General  Hagood  has  his  daily  con- 
ference with  the  heads  of  the  Sections.  Once  more 
you  have  the  Directors'  meeting  of  the  Business  of 
war.  With  the  Diary  before  him,  which  he  has  al- 
ready read,  the  Chief  of  Staff  asks  the  why  and  the 
wherefore  of  the  various  steps  and  changes  enumer- 
ated in  it.  In  the  case  of  the  movement  of  the  Nth 
Division  he  may  ask:  "Why  did  not  these  troops  go 
into  barracks?"  or  with  the  item  relating  to  the  Chief 
Quartermaster  he  may  inquire:  "Is  this  in  accord- 
ance with  the  terms  of  our  new  food  agreement  with 
the  French?"  In  the  matter  of  those  eight  thousand 
horses  the  query  may  be:  "Does  this  complete  the 
project  for  this  Remount  Camp?"  while  referring  to 
the  construction  of  the  new  warehouses  he  may  ask: 
"Is  this  depot  proceeding  towards  construction  on 
schedule  time?" 


BRIGADIER  GENERAL  JOHNSON  HAGOOD  (Left) 

Ckitf  of  Staff  of  the  S.  O.  S.,  A.  E.  F 

and  the  Author 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  53 

I  cite  these  questions  to  show,  first  of  all,  how  the 
Chief  puts  an  unerring  probe  into  everything  that  is 
done;  second,  by  knowing  just  what  is  being  done 
within  twenty-four  hours  after  it  has  been  started 
he  can  rectify  any  mistake  before  it  has  gone  too  far. 
This  is  especially  true  of  large  construction  such  as 
barracks  and  warehouses.  It  also  applies  with  special 
importance  to  the  shifting  of  the  labour  battalions. 

One  great  value  of  this  Diary  and  the  operations 
that  contribute  to  it,  is  that  it  disposes  of  matters  at 
once.  In  the  old  army  day  and  way  every  individual 
item  that  I  have  mentioned  (and  in  fact  everything 
that  referred  to  any  phase  of  army  work),  not  only 
had  to  be  mulled  over  and  indorsed  by  a  dozen  people 
but  literally  had  to  break  its  way  through  miles  of 
red  tape.  Instead  of  swift  action  there  was  intermi- 
nable delay  which  clogged  the  wheels  of  progress. 

In  the  case  of  the  S.  O.  S.  the  Chief  of  Staff,  ex- 
pressing the  desires  of  the  Commanding  General  for 
whom  he  acts,  delegates  authority  to  his  subordinates, 
the  heads  of  the  various  Sections.  They  act  upon  their 
own  judgment  and  the  information  they  possess,  and 
the  result  is  that  there  is  no  hampering  in  effort. 
Now  you  can  see  why  the  Commanding  General  is 
free  to  move  about  his  domain  and  also  why  the 
Chief  of  Staff  likewise  has  a  clean  desk  and  can  turn 
at  once  to  any  large  emergency  that  arises.  It  all 
combines  for  a  flexible  system  of  supervision  and 
supply.  The  men  at  the  helm  are  not  desk-bound, 
and  the  myriad  of  personnel  and  material  they  con- 
trol are  equally  elastic. 


54  S.  O.  S. 

The  Diary  is  only  one  of  a  series  of  reports  which 
deal  with  the  Progress  of  Supply.  As  a  sort  of  corol- 
lary to  the  Daily  State  of  Supply  is  a  document  called 
The  Daily  Situation,  which  is  a  miniature  typewrit- 
ten newspaper,  prepared  by  G4  and  which  goes  to 
the  Commanding  General  and  the  Chief  of  Staff  with 
the  Daily  State.  It  is  a  General  Summary  of  vital 
problems  that  cannot  be  discussed  in  the  Diary,  which 
deals  only  with  actual  events.  It  details,  for  example, 
such  emergencies  as  temporary  congestions  in  the  rail- 
way regulating  stations.  It  also  deals  with  the  tie-ups 
in  troop  traffic,  with  tonnage  difficulties,  with  troop 
arrivals,  with  the  ammunition  situation,  indeed  all  the 
many  unexpected  emergencies  that  try  the  soul  of  the 
army  administrator  operating  three  thousand  miles 
from  his  home  base  and  in  a  country  where  he  must 
wrestle  with  strange  laws  and  employ  public  carriers 
that  have  systems  and  regulations  not  altogether 
geared  up  to  swift  and  strenuous  American  ways. 

When  any  one  of  these  contingencies  develops  the 
Chief  of  Staff  or  the  head  of  G4,  or  both,  at  once 
calls  a  meeting  of  the  Chief  of  the  Service  involved 
and  his  principal  associates  and  threshes  it  out.  Thus 
he  gets  at  the  specialists  who  know  exactly  what  they 
can  do  and  who  have  the  wherewithal  to  do  it 

By  now  you  will  have  gathered  that  both  Gi  and 
G4  are  important  links  in  the  American  Army  ma- 
chine. It  is  high  time  therefore  that  we  look  into 
their  ramified  functions.  They  unfold  a  system  of 
scrutiny  and  co-ordination  that  is  little  less  than  a 
triumph  of  organisation.  Nothing  in  the  whole  rec- 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  55 

ord  of  army  administration  surpasses  them  in  the 
perfection  and  execution  of  detail.  Yet  it  was  all 
conceived  and  is,  in  the  main,  dominated  and  oper- 
ated by  regular  soldiers  who  have  come  from  camp 
and  field  to  sweat  over  charts,  telegrams  and  sta- 
tistics. Again  you  discover  that  all  the  fighting  is 
not  at  the  front — that  war  is  work  and  worry. 

We  will  begin  with  Gi.  Although  it  deals  with 
administration  and  organisation,  its  chief  work  is 
procurement  of  men  and  material  from  the  United 
States.  Here  you  touch  the  supreme  problem  of  the 
A.  E.  F.,  which  is  tonnage.  So  far  as  the  United 
States  are  affected,  this  is  a  War  of  Tonnage.  Every 
square  foot  of  cargo  space  is  precious  and  must  be 
utilised  to  the  last  cubic  inch.  Every  service  in  France 
wants  all  the  tonnage  it  can  get.  The  movement  of 
troops  and  therefore  their  needs,  exceeds  all  original 
estimates.  The  furnace  of  war  must  be  kept  fuelled. 
The  lot  of  Gi  therefore  is  not  an  easy  one. 

Since  there  is  only  a  certain  amount  of  tonnage 
available  it  follows  that  it  must  be  allotted,  or  "allo- 
cated" as  the  army  phrase  goes,  to  the  best  possible 
advantage.  This  allocation  is  the  pivot  around  which 
Gi  works.  Now  we  get  to  the  first  actual  link  with 
Washington  which,  through  the  Ship-Control  Com- 
mittee of  the  Shipping  Board,  is  the  Tonnage  Pro- 
vider. On  the  tenth  of  every  month  Gi  in  France 
wires  to  Major  General  George  W.  Goethals,  assist- 
ant Chief  of  Staff,  to  find  out  how  much  tonnage  is 
available  for  France  the  next  month.  He  wires  back 
the  amount.  For  the  sake  of  illustration  let  us  say 


56  S.  O.  S. 

that  it  is  500,000  tons.  This  figure  then  becomes  a 
sort  of  target  of  attack,  because  all  overseas  demands 
are  focussed  on  it.  It  is  like  a  cake  set  out  for  con- 
sumption before  a  hungry  crowd.  Everybody  wants 
to  get  as  big  a  slice  as  possible.  The  troubles  of 
Gi  begin. 

The  allocation  of  tonnage  is  based  on  the  Require- 
ments of  the  various  army  services  abroad.  The  task 
therefore  is  to  balance  all  these  requirements  so  that 
every  need  will  be  met  and  in  the  priority  of  that 
need.  Hence  Priority,  which  has  come  to  be  such 
an  important  factor  in  Industry  as  well  as  War,  takes 
its  station  in  the  big  game. 

This  is  what  happens:  If  Gi  finds  that  500,000 
tons  of  shipping  are  available  it  will  allot,  let  us  say 
'for  the  simplest  explanation,  250,000  tons  to  the 
Quartermaster's  Corps;  100,000  tons  to  the  Medical 
Corps,  100,000  tons  to  the  Engineers,  and  50,000  tons 
to  Mechanical  Transport.  There  are  of  course  many 
other  services,  but  these  four  will  serve  our  purpose. 

Every  head  of  a  Service  now  makes  up  his  Prior- 
ity Schedule  in  the  order  of  the  urgency  of  his  needs. 
In  the  general  priority  programme  Food,  Fuel,  Forage 
and  Clothing  always  come  first.  In  our  hypothetical 
case  the  Quartermaster  has  250,000  tons  to  his  credit. 
He  cannot  touch  that  fixed  reserve  of  ninety  days. 
Likewise  the  monthly  automatic  supply  must  be  kept 
moving.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  a  host  of  other 
supplies  to  obtain.  Therefore  he  must  do  some  jug- 
gling. He  must  determine  whether  rolling  kitchens 
should  come  ahead  of  army  wagons;  if  jam  should 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  57 

have  precedence  over  overcoats,  and  if  vinegar  is 
more  important  than  olive  oil.  In  the  same  way  the 
Chief  Surgeon  must  decide  whether  arnica  outranks 
castor  oil;  the  Director  of  Mechanical  Transport  must 
determine  if  the  bulk  of  his  space  is  to  be  used  for 
trucks  instead  of  passenger  cars,  while  the  Chief 
Engineer  must  decide  whether  fabricated  buildings 
or  construction  tools  have  the  precedence.  I  have  only 
used  one  or  two  typical  items.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  thousands  enter  into  the  combined  tonnage  esti- 
mates of  the  A.  E.  F. 

All  these  requisitions,  made  up  in  the  order  of  their 
priorities,  go  to  Gi,  which  censors  them,  and  then 
transmits  them  to  the  United  States  by  cable,  which 
leaves  France  not  later  than  the  middle  of  the  month. 
This  means  that  the  Requisitions  for  July  shipment 
must  go  by  June  I5th.  Requisitions  for  replacements 
of  men  are  made  in  exactly  the  same  way,  and  there 
is  a  priority  for  human  beings  just  as  there  is  for 
Food  and  Supplies. 

Gi,  however,  does  not  use  up  all  its  tonnage  for 
these  regular  Requisitions.  It  must  keep  a  surplus 
to  meet  the  many  exceptional,  that  is,  unexpected  de- 
mands. Then,  too,  the  heads  of  Services  frequently 
change  their  Requisitions,  which  means  a  fresh  cable- 
gram to  Washington  from  Gi.  On  the  back  of  this 
cable,  for  office  reference,  you  see  this  tonnage  in 
cubic  feet.  Gi  must  know  to  the  pound  just  how 
much  of  its  space  is  being  used  up.  All  this  actual 
allocation  of  tonnage  is  done  by  the  Gi  of  the  Services 
of  Supply.  The  senior  Gi  at  G.  H.  Q.  is  only  used  as 


58  S.  O.  S. 

a  Supreme  Court  in  shaping  the  larger  tonnage  prob- 
lems. 

Allotting  space  is  only  one  phase  of  Gi's  tonnage 
job.  It  must  keep  its  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  whole 
ceaseless  ship  movement  between  America  and 
France.  It  must  know  how  and  when  cargoes  are 
unloaded  and  when  ships  start  back.  What  is  known 
as  "Turn  Around" — the  round  trip — must  be  made 
as  quickly  as  possible  both  for  troop  and  cargo  ves- 
sels. Take  a  look  at  the  so-called  Tonnage  Room, 
and  you  will  see  how  this  difficult  task  is  made  easy, 
visible  and  comprehensive.  It  is  another  revelation 
of  what  American  system  can  accomplish  when 
geared  up  to  the  Business  of  War. 

The  walls  of  the  Tonnage  Room  tell  the  story. 
They  are  hung  with  Charts  of  Tonnage  Progress. 
You  can  stand  in  the  centre  of  this  Chamber  of  Rev- 
elation and  see,  in  coloured  lines,  figures  and  diagrams 
that  a  child  can  understand,  just  what  is  going  on  in 
every  port.  There  is  a  Chart  for  every  port  in 
France.  Up  and  down  one  side  of  the  Chart  is  a 
list  of  individual  cargo  items  to  be  unloaded,  such 
as  lumber,  coal,  forage,  railway  supplies,  foodstuffs, 
clothing,  Quartermaster's  supplies  and  construction 
material.  A  black  line  radiating  from  each  item  means 
its  Receipts;  a  red  line  indicates  the  progress  of  the 
Evacuation  of  those  Receipts.  If  the  black  line  is 
longer  than  the  red  it  shows  that  cargo  is  piling  up 
at  the  ports.  If  these  lines  are  the  same  length  all 
is  well  and  the  stuff  is  moving  out,  which  means  no 
congestion.  These  lines  are  marked  off  in  days  and 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  59 

weeks.  This  is  what  might  be  called  the  Tonnage 
Movement  Chart.  Then  there  is  a  Chart  which  shows 
the  work  of  all  ports  in  items,  days,  weeks  and 
months.  From  this  you  can  see  almost  in  a  second 
if  labour  is  doing  its  full  job  or  where  it  is  falling 
down. 

The  same  system  is  used  to  show  the  work  of  the 
troop  transports.  On  a  huge  chart  you  see  the  name 
of  the  ship,  the  length  of  time  it  stayed  in  a  French 
port  indicated  in  black;  the  time  on  the  ocean  in  red, 
and  its  stay  in  the  American  port  in  green.  From  this 
chart  you  can  tell  that  the  average  "Turn  Around" 
of  some  troop  transports  has  dropped  from  68  to  35 
days.  A  similar  system  shows  how  the  "Turn 
Around"  of  cargo  ships  has  been  reduced  from  91 
to  71  days,  while  the  round  trip  of  animal  transports 
has  decreased  from  84  to  60  days.  These  statistics 
not  only  indicate  efficiency  of  effort  at  the  ports,  but 
form  the  basis  of  future  tonnage  arrangements  and 
for  the  allotments  of  labour. 

These  charts — and  the  many  more  that  I  could  de- 
scribe— enable  Gi  to  know  at  all  times  just  how  the 
whole  unloading  situation  stands  and  on  this  situa- 
tion, so  intimately  linked  with  the  tonnage  problem, 
depends  the  life,  the  security,  and  the  success  of  our 
cause  abroad.  Gi,  I  might  add,  has  a  representative 
in  every  Division  and  Corps  in  the  field  and  at  the 
Headquarters  of  each  of  the  Armies.  Everywhere 
its  major  task  is  to  procure  what  those  forces  need. 

You  have  seen  how  Gi  deals  with  the  whole  trying 
tonnage  allocation.  Its  task  in  this  matter,  however, 


60  S.  O.  S. 

ends  the  moment  men  and  material  get  to  France. 
G4  then  takes  them  up,  establishes  the  priority  by 
which  they  are  distributed,  and  sees  that  they  are  de- 
livered to  their  proper  station.  This  means  that  if 
the  Engineers  need  construction  material  more  than 
the  Signal  Corps  require  wires  or  poles,  this  mate- 
rial gets  the  right  of  way  over  the  transportation 
facilities.  It  is  up  to  G4  to  maintain  a  saturated 
solution  of  all  supplies  in  France  and  keep  that  solu- 
tion liquid  and  moving. 

Study  the  work  of  64  and  you  find  one  of  the  most 
amazing  details  of  our  whole  army  situation.  There 
is  nothing  like  it  in  any  of  the  many  armies  with 
whom  I  have  been  in  contact  in  this  war.  It  is  not 
only  the  stabiliser  of  the  war  machine,  but  it  is  like- 
wise the  door  before  whom  all  the  complications  and 
anxieties  of  the  A.  E.  F.  are  laid.  Its  long  arm 
reaches  everywhere;  it  dwells  with  both  the  working 
and  fighting  armies;  it  is  the  regulating  station  for 
army  policies — the  Great  Shock  Absorber.  Apply  G4 
to  any  great  American  Corporation  and  it  could  pick 
up  the  threads  of  its  activities  overnight  and  carry 
them  on  to  success.  Like  the  host  it  succours  it  is 
tireless  and  sleepless.  It  must  meet  every  emergency 
without  batting  an  eye.  Its  story  is  a  continuous 
record  of  dramatic  event. 

Last  July,  when  the  swift  German  advance  men- 
aced Paris,  Brigadier  General  George  Van  Horn 
Moseley,  head  of  G4  at  G.  H.  Q.,  was  on  a  tour  of 
inspection  in  the  field.  General  Pershing,  as  history 
now  knows,  had  to  hurl  an  army  to  the  rescue  and 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  61 

in  a  sector  which  was  far  outside  the  prescribed  and 
equipped  zone  of  our  operations.  That  heroic  little 
army  had  to  be  fed  and  supplied  and  without  delay. 
On  the  spot  General  Moseley  devised  a  whole  system 
of  emergency  supply  which  kept  pace  with  that  army 
and  met  every  need.  A  half  a  dozen  telegrams  did 
the  job.  In  one  he  converted  a  certain  Intermediate 
Storage  Depot  into  an  Advance  Depot,  charged  with 
the  task  of  feeding  and  supplying  this  fighting  army. 
Another  wire  established  a  new  regulating  station;  a 
third  marshalled  ammunition,  transport  of  all  kinds 
and  reserves  at  certain  designated  points.  In  less 
than  twenty-four  hours  this  whole  emergency  scheme 
to  provide  every  kind  of  war  sustenance  was  in  work- 
ing order. 

The  army  wanted  some  ration  carts.  The  Advance 
Depot  wired  back  that  it  had  none,  and  did  not  know 
where  they  could  be  obtained,  whereupon  General 
Moseley  sent  back  a  telegram  which  said  in  substance : 
"It  is  not  material  where  you  get  them  but  you  must 
provide  them."  They  came  up  the  next  day.  This 
is  the  way  the  G4  works. 

Technically  charged  with  "Construction,  Transpor- 
tation and  Supply,"  its  organisation  is  so  compact 
that  not  a  single  army  service  in  France  escapes  its 
ministrations.  Division  A  deals  with  Supply,  Equip- 
ment, Mechanical  Transport,  Remounts,  Fire  Preven- 
tion, Salvage  Service,  Graves  Registration,  Supply 
Statistics  and  Office  Administration.  Under  it  the 
Diary  of  Activities  that  is  laid  on  General  Hagood's 
desk  every  morning  and  which  I  have  described,  is 


62  S.  O.  S. 

prepared.  Division  B  deals  with  Troop  Movements 
(not  strategically  but  as  a  transportation  matter)  ; 
Billets  and  Billeting,  Initial  Equipment,  Rents,  Req- 
uisitions and  Claims,  while  Division  C  has  to  do  with* 
Construction,  Railway  Transportation,  the  Army 
Transport  Service,  Labour  and  Priority  of  Shipment 
in  France.  Typical  of  the  foresight  of  G4  is  Divi- 
sion D,  which  is  "Plans  for  Future  Expansion  and 
Development." 

G4  does  not  physically  carry  out  any  of  these  many 
activities,  but  its  task  is  to  co-ordinate  all  of  them; 
to  see  that  they  do  not  clash ;  to  reconcile  deficit  with 
surplus;  in  short  to  keep  the  wheels  turning  day  and 
night.  If  Construction  is  to  be  minimised  it  is  G4 
that  finds  storage  areas;  if  freight  cars  are  short  it 
digs  them  up  somewhere;  if  evacuation  of  tonnage 
in  ports  is  behind  Receipts  it  finds  labour  battalions 
to  speed  up  the  work.  It  is  both  Provider  and  Accel- 
erator— a  sort  of  glorified  and  many-sided  Policeman 
to  whom  the  American  Army  abroad  tells  its  troubles. 

Following  the  ways  of  the  American  business  cor- 
poration, G4  has  its  Suggestion  Box  in  the  shape  of 
a  Suggestion  Officer  who  is  constantly  in  the  field. 
He  travels  from  Section  to  Section,  investigating 
work  and  recommending  plans  for  betterments,  la- 
bour-saving or  expansion.  If  he  sees  that  switching 
facilities  in  a  storage  yard  are  handicapped  he  sug- 
gests additional  engines;  if  he  finds  that  working 
units  can  be  consolidated  he  says  so.  All  these  sug- 
gestions are  discussed  in  a  meeting  of  04  and  if  found 
feasible  are  at  once  put  into  effect. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR  63 

At  the  head  of  the  pyramid  of  G4  organisation 
sits  the  eagle-eyed  and  dynamic  Colonel  H.  C. 
Smither,  with  a  mind  like  a  steel  trap  and  an  instinct 
for  order  that  is  almost  uncanny.  At  his  right  hand 
is  his  no  less  energetic  and  big-visioned  colleague, 
Colonel  J.  H.  Poole,  who  went  from  the  regular  army 
into  commerce,  got  all  the  benefit  of  Big  Business  and 
is  back  on  the  military  job  again.  He  is  the  Deputy 
Assistant  Chief  of  Staff.  Under  their  combined  di- 
rection the  remarkable  Daily  Supply  State  and  the 
Daily  Summary  are  prepared.  These  men,  like  the 
late  E.  H.  Harriman,  live  a  life  that  is  geared  up  to 
the  telephone  and  telegraph.  There  is  not  an  hour 
of  the  twenty-four  that  the  lights  are  not  burning 
in  the  offices  of  04  of  the  Services  of  Supply. 

Problems  of  significant  policy  as  affecting  the 
whole  Expeditionary  Force  are  of  course  referred 
by  Tours  to  the  G4  of  G.  H.  Q.,  which  wisely  allows 
its  opposite  number  in  the  S.  O.  S.  every  latitude. 
The  senior  G4  at  G.  H.  Q.,  however,  is  more  actively 
concerned  with  the  co-ordination  of  the  supplies  and 
the  activities  of  the  armies  in  the  field  who  are  so 
near  at  hand. 

Where  does  Washington  figure  in  this  self-con- 
tained Service  of  Supply  which  links  port  with  trench? 
It  pays  the  bills  and  acts  as  Purchasing  and  For- 
warding Agent.  The  cables  bring  the  A.  E.  F.  needs 
to  a  desk  in  the  State,  War  and  Navy  Building, 
where  Major  General  George  W.  Goethals  sits  as 
Assistant  Chief  of  Staff  in  charge  of  Purchase,  Stor- 
age and  Traffic — a  task  infinitely  bigger  than  what 


64  S.  O.  S. 

confronted  him  at  Panama.  From  that  desk  in  turn 
radiates  the  process  of  Production  and  Transporta- 
tion that  fills  the  orders  and  sees  that  the  goods  go 
steaming  to  France.  It  involves  the  Control  of  Raw 
Materials,  the  establishment  of  Supply  Zones  and 
Warehouses  in  the  United  States ;  the  scouring  of  the 
whole  world  of  output  and  shipping — all  to  the  end 
that  our  fighting  man  abroad  is  fed  and  equipped. 
And  he  gets  what  he  wants. 

We  have  followed  supplies  from  contract  to  the 
borders  of  consumption;  to  that  far-away  domain 
where  the  genius  of  American  organisation,  now  to 
be  revealed,  is  fit  comrade  to  the  valour  it  sustains. 
We  atoned  for  delay  with  thoroughness;  we  met  that 
one-time  rebuke  with  kindling  performance. 


Ill — Army  Tracks  and  Traffic 


BILL  BROWN,  who  once  drove  a  Santa  Fe 
"Mogul"  across  the  Kansas  Prairies,  hitched 
up  his  grimy  khaki  overalls  and  looked  out  of 
the  cab  of  his  monster  consolidation  locomotive 
marked  "U.  S.  A.,"  which  had  left  its  Philadelphia 
maker  less  than  a  month  before  and  which  now 
panted  alongside  a  quay  at  St.  Nazaire  in  France. 
A  scene  of  incessant  action  unfolded  before  him.  In 
the  lock  basin  was  a  forest  of  funnels  and  masts  of 
American  ships  whose  gay  camouflage  gleamed  in  the 
sunlight.  From  one  of  them  a  ninety-ton  naval  gun 
swung  ashore  as  easily  as  a  bale  of  hay;  from  an- 
other, five-ton  motor  trucks  were  lowered  as  lightly. 
Cranes  creaked ;  the  plantation  melodies  of  the  Sunny 
South,  sung  by  negro  stevedores,  mingled  with  the 
song  of  Chinese  coolies  who  formed  a  continuous 
line  of  cargo  carriers  from  deck  to  dock. 

In  the  yards  nearby  dozens  of  huge  American  en- 
gines, hauling  endless  chains  of  American  cars, 
loaded  with  American  supplies,  snorted  off  to  Amer- 
ican depots,  often  on  American  tracks  sentinelled  by 
American  poles  down  which  flashed  American  mes- 
sages sent  and  received  by  American  men  and  women. 
Likewise  for  miles  up  and  down  the  winding  inland 

65 


66  S.  O.  S. 

waterways  American  tugs,  pulling  American  boats, 
chugged  along  bearing  their  burden  of  American 
freight  and  responsibility.  Day  and  night  and  with 
an  effort  as  ceaseless  as  the  tide  of  tonnage  that 
beats  on  those  stricken  shores  of  France,  is  the  move- 
ment of  American  freight  and  transport  over  there. 

What  was  happening  in  the  port  that  made  Bill 
Brown  blink  his  eye  and  breathe  a  little  faster  was 
happening  in  more  than  half  a  dozen  ports  along 
that  same  French  coast  with  varying  degrees  of  va- 
riety and  volume  but  always  with  the  same  unending 
action.  Again  we  are  confronted  by  a  miracle  of 
expansion.  In  January  of  1918  we  were  unload- 
ing 162,000  tons  a  month;  in  July  this  had  grown 
to  694,000  tons.  As  late  as  March  we  thought  that 
landing  60,000  troops  in  France  was  a  big  thirty 
days'  record,  yet  in  July  exactly  301,000  stepped 
ashore.  Men  and  material  were  handled,  supplied 
and,  what  was  equally  important,  transported  to  their 
proper  destination. 

It  is  all  made  possible  by  the  Empire  of  Transporta- 
tion whose  teeming  docks,  tracks  and  traffic  consti- 
tute one  of  the  marvels  of  our  overseas  effort.  Over 
it  is  laid  the  strong  hand  of  compact  organisation; 
galvanising  it  is  an  energy  typically  American  in 
spirit  and  execution.  At  the  throttle  is  an  all-star 
cast  of  famous  railroad  and  steamship  officials  whose 
united  salaries  in  times  of  peace  would  almost  float 
a  big  city's  allotment  of  a  Liberty  Loan.  Yet  they 
toil  in  France  for  a  Major's  or  a  Colonel's  pay. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  I  tried  to  describe  the 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          67 

general  scope  and  structure  of  the  Services  of  Sup- 
ply which  feed  and  equip  the  fighting  man.  It  showed 
the  whole  close-knit  system  that  binds  the  World  of 
Output  to  the  Domain  of  Consumption.  We  are  now 
up  to  the  all  essential  intermediary  process  of  Distri- 
bution. Before  that  avalanche  of  supplies  can  move 
from  sea  to  gun  and  stomach  there  must  be  a  system 
of  adequate  transport.  We  will  now  journey  along 
its  rails  and  canals  for  the  second  phase  of  the  amaz- 
ing institution  that  American  enterprise  has  set  up 
in  a  foreign  land  and  which  furnishes  the  arteries  of 
the  United  States  of  Supply  abroad. 

Here,  as  with  every  other  American  activity  in 
France,  we  had  to  build  literally  from  the  ground  up. 
As  soon  as  we  went  to  war  it  became  evident  that 
the  success  of  our  armies  overseas  would  depend 
upon  the  manner  in  which  they  were  moved  and  sup- 
plied. Hence  Transportation  loomed  up  at  the  start 
as  a  vital  factor.  The  difficulties  that  lay  in  its  way 
were  many.  After  three  years  of  war  the  wear  and 
tear  on  the  railway  facilities  of  France,  and  without 
adequate  renewal,  were  terrific.  Forty  per  cent  of 
its  leading  road — Le  Nord — was  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy.  Every  ocean  gate-way  of  any  consequence 
was  in  continuous  use.  The  six  largest  Channel  ports 
were  occupied  wholly  or  in  part  by  the  British,  and 
therefore  could  not  stand  the  strain  of  added  Amer- 
ican tonnage.  Besides,  if  we  were  to  do  our  full 
job  abroad  we  had  to  have  our  own  ports.  To  move 
our  armies  and  the  necessary  quantity  of  subsistence 
and  equipment  for  their  upkeep  engines,  cars,  ter- 


68  S.  O.  S. 

minals — a  whole  railway  system — had  to  be  reared. 
All  this  required  organisation,  labour  and  the  where- 
withal to  build  and  operate. 

Almost  with  our  declaration  of  war  we  realised 
this  enormous  transport  responsibility.  It  was  an 
expert  job  and  had  to  be  blocked  out  by  experts. 
Before  General  Pershing  and  his  Staff  set  out  on 
their  historic  journey  to  France  to  plant  the  Amer- 
ican flag  on  the  soil  of  freedom  a  Railway  Commis- 
sion, named  by  the  Secretary  of  War  with  the  aid  of 
Mr.  S.  M.  Felton,  sailed  from  New  York  to  investi- 
gate dock  and  traffic  conditions  and  recommend  a 
plan  for  the  American  system.  The  senior  member 
was  (Maijor  William  Barclay  Parsons,  an  eminent 
engineer  who  had  constructed  the  first  subways  in 
New  York.  The  other  members  were:  W.  J.  Wil- 
gus,  who  had  been  Vice-President  of  the  New  York 
Central,  who  had,  among  other  things,  laid  the  plans 
for  the  electrification  of  that  system  and  who  had 
been  commissioned  a  Major  in  the  Reserve  Corps; 
Captain  A.  B.  Barber,  of  the  Engineer  Corps,  United 
States  Army;  W.  A.  Garrett,  who  had  had  wide  expe- 
rience as  a  transportation  official;  and  F.  de  St. 
Phalle,  ai  motive  power  and  rolling  stock  expert  who 
was  an  officer  of  a  great  locomotive  works  in  Phila- 
delphia. They  represented  a  combined  experience 
that  was  an  immense  asset  in  their  ramified  investiga- 
tions, which  began  at  the  War  Office  in  London  and 
practically  covered  every  line  of  communication  used 
by  the  Allied  armies  in  France.  The  recommenda- 
tions of  this  Commission,  and  more  especially  the  de- 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    69 

tails  suggested  by  Major,  now  Colonel  Wilgus, 
formed  the  basis  of  the  whole  immense  and  far-flung 
structure  through  which  the  life-blood  of  our  armies 
in  France  rushes  to-day. 

That  Commission  found  the  available  French  ports 
and  their  docks  already  overburdened  with  tonnage 
and  most  of  them  with  inadequate  and  obsolete  equip- 
ment. The  four  great  strategic  railways  of  France, 
running  from  the  North  to  the  South,  were  carrying 
nearly  all  the  traffic  that  the  rails  could  bear.  Even 
the  canals  were  blocked.  France's  man-power  was 
nearing  depletion,  the  available  sources  of  supplies 
well-nigh  exhausted.  It  all  meant  that  America  would 
not  only  have  to  construct  but  also  bring  her  labour 
and  material  from  home. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Commission  therefore 
was  to  cable  for  Engineers.  Thus  it  came  about  that 
in  the  vanguard  of  the  millioned  fighting  host  that 
later  crossed  the  sea  came  those  gallant  Engineer  regi- 
ments who  have  recorded  in  France  an  epic  of  achieve- 
ment that  must  stand  out  as  one  of  the  brilliant  per- 
formances of  the  whole  American  Expeditionary 
Force. 

Nine  Engineer  regiments  were  sent.  Five  were  for 
Railway  Construction;  three  for  Railway  Operation; 
while  the  third  was  a  Shop  regiment.  They  were  re- 
cruited from  railway  cab,  switch,  round  house  and 
shop.  Every  man  was  a  volunteer.  Some  of  the 
units  went  straight  to  France;  others  by  way  of 
England. 

Five  of  the  regiments  marched  through  London  on 


70  S.  O.  S. 

that  historic  August  day  of  1917  when  Britain  got 
her  initial  view  of  our  men  in  khaki  and  when  for 
the  first  time  an  alien  army,  under  its  arms  and  flags, 
paraded  the  British  capital.  Whitehall,  Regent  Street, 
Pall  Mall,  Piccadilly — indeed  all  the  heart  of  London 
— were  aflutter  with  American  flags  and  noisy  with 
a  deafening  crash  of  cheers.  I  saw  those  five  regi- 
ments march  past  King  George  as  he  stood  at  salute 
in  front  of  Buckingham  Palace — an  unforgettably 
spectacle  in  a  war  that  has  given  me  some  memor- 
able pictures.  As  those  stalwarts  swung  along  a  Brit- 
ish Major  General  who  stood  by  my  side,  said  to 
me: 

"Those  regulars  of  yours  march  well." 

"They  are  not  regulars,"  I  replied.  "Six  weeks 
ago  they  were  running  locomotives,  building  tracks, 
or  operating  lathes  in  the  United  States." 

"Extraordinary,"  was  his  response. 

That  parade  through  London  was  the  last  spec- 
tacular appearance  that  the  American  Engineers 
made.  Henceforth  from  battlefield  to  dock  they  were 
to  toil  as  no  labourers  have  ever  toiled  before.  Even 
their  departure  from  England  had  its  dramatic  touch 
— a  suggestion  of  that  famous  episode  "in  Belgium's 
capital"  before  Waterloo  as  told  by  Byron  in  "Childe 
Harold."  In  London  was  Charles  G.  Dawes,  former 
Comptroller  of  the  Currency  and  now  Purchasing 
Agent  of  the  A.  E.  F.  in  France.  He  had  left  his 
bank  in  Chicago  to  become  a  Lieutenant  Colonel — 
he  is  now  a  Brigadier — in  one  of  the  Engineer  regi- 
ments. He  gave  some  of  his  fellow  officers  a  dinner 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    71 

at  the  Carlton  Hotel  which  was  to  be  followed  by  a 
theatre  party.  Part  of  this  regiment  had  been  as- 
signed to  the  British  Army  in  France.  As  the  Amer- 
icans sat  at  dinner  a  hurry-up  call  came  from  the 
War  Office  to  depart  for  the  front  early  next  morn- 
ing. "All  right,"  was  the  response.  "We  will  be 
ready."  The  port  from  which  they  were  to  embark 
was  a  three-hour  journey  by  rail  from  London.  Colo- 
nel Dawes  chartered  a  fleet  of  taxi  cabs  and  saw  his 
social  programme  through.  The  next  morning  these 
officers,  having  journeyed  from  midnight  to  dawn 
by  motor,  were  on  hand  to  leave  with  their  men. 

Within  a  week  I  saw  some  of  them  laying  track 
under  fire  up  the  Somme.  It  was  a  group  of  these 
Engineers  who,  in  that  first  great  battle  before  Cam- 
brai  when  a  British  Army  was  well-nigh  overwhelmed 
by  numbers  last  year,  threw  away  picks  and  shovels, 
grabbed  guns  and  leaped  to  action.  It  was  another 
company  of  the  same  unit  who,  when  the  fate  of 
Amiens  trembled  in  the  balance  last  spring,  did  the 
same  heroic  trick  and  became  part  of  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral Carey's  famous  "scratch"  army  that  saved  that 
day  so  full  of  other  disaster  to  the  Allied  cause. 
Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  American  Engineers  who 
built  the  foundation  and  much  of  the  structure  of  our 
transportation  system  in  France;  the  type  of  organ- 
isation a  detachment  of  which  laid  nearly  three  miles 
of  narrow  gauge  railroad  in  seven  hours  while  two 
companies  built  two  warehouses  containing  40,000 
square  feet  in  eight  hours  and  a  half! 

Go  to  any  one  of  the  ports  that  we  use  in  France, 


72  S.  O.  S. 

and  you  will  see  the  results  of  their  labours  which 
began  with  bare  hands  and  improvised  tools.  For 
the  sake  of  illustration  I  will  use  two  major  ports. 
The  first — Base  Section  Number  One  (St.  Nazaire) 
• — is  that  historic  one-time  fishing  town  which  will 
always  be  bound  to  the  United  States  by  sentimental 
ties  and  where  the  first  American  Expeditionary 
Force  set  foot  on  French  soil.  In  August,  1917,  the 
whole  dock  and  unloading  facilities  were  not  only 
hopelessly  inadequate  for  our  needs  but  the  pros- 
pect of  increasing  them  was  equally  disheartening. 
Although  there  were  two  large  lock  basins  the  an- 
chorage outside  was  inadequate,  while  the  discharg- 
ing facilities  were  lamentably  poor.  Only  six  ships 
of  10,000  tons  each  could  be  discharged  simultane- 
ously. The  dock  buildings  were  old  and  rat-ridden; 
there  were  a  few  rusty  cranes;  the  beds  of  the  rail- 
road tracks  alongside  had  bogged  in  the  wet  ground. 
We  had  no  barges  for  lightering.  When  our  first 
locomotives  arrived  in  a  deep-draught  ship  we  had 
to  use  an  ocean-going  steamer  for  a  lighter;  transfer 
the  engines  to  her  deck  and  then  bring  them  into 
one  of  the  basins  in  this  crude  and  cumbersome  way. 
Such  were  the  handicaps  under  which  we  laboured 
for  months. 

But  those  Engineers  got  busy  and  they  made  the 
miracle  happen.  At  the  outset  a  discharge  of  2,000 
tons  a  day  was  considered  an  immense  performance 
at  this  port;  in  October  that  same  port  discharged 
exactly  12,000  tons.  We  had  not  only  rebuilt  those 
tottering  warehouses  but  in  this  port  and  in  the  great 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          73 

Base  Supply  Depot  at  Montoir,  four  miles  away,  we 
had  constructed  fifty  great  warehouses  that  comprise 
a  City  of  Supply.  We  have  linked  those  docks  and 
warehouses  with  more  than  a  hundred  miles  of  tracks 
and  spurs — some  of  them  on  concrete  road-bed.  The 
project  has  a  trackage  equal  to  that  of  Altoona,  which 
is  a  nerve-centre  of  the  Pennsylvania  system  with  two 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  rails.  We  have  increased 
the  basin  facilities  until  to-day  there  are  berths  for 
twenty-one  ships  of  big  tonnage.  Fourteen  vessels 
can  discharge  at  the  same  time. 

The  A.  E.  F.  in  France,  with  the  Pershing  fore- 
sight that  made  our  whole  achievement  possible,  al- 
ways looks  ahead,  and  there  is  now  in  course  of  con- 
struction an  American  pier  nearly  4,000  feet  long, 
built  on  American  piles,  that  eventually  will  accom- 
modate sixteen  vessels.  The  way  I  saw  this  pier 
driven  far  out  into  the  river  day  after  day  with 
amazing  rapidity  made  the  French  sit  up.  Accus- 
tomed to  putting  down  massive  concrete  foundations, 
they  stood  speechless  at  the  spectacle  of  American 
piles  pounded  in  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  a  day. 
We  drove  twelve  to  every  one  that  the  French  could 
put  down.  Not  content  with  working  these  wonders 
on  quay  and  road-bed,  our  Engineers  have  installed 
a  complete  water  supply  for  the  town,  which  meant 
the  construction  of  complete  waterworks  and  a  pump- 
ing station  with  a  capacity  of  6,000,000  gallons  a 
day.  A  5OO,ooo-gallon  reservoir  was  simply  one  fea- 
ture of  the  project 

You  are  not  surprised  when  I  tell  you  that  two 


74  S.  O.  S. 

men  largely  responsible  for  the  consummation  of 
this  work  are  Lieutenant  Colonel  William  G.  Atwood, 
who  in  civil  life  drove  the  Alaska  Central  through 
the  snows  and  rigors  of  the  frozen  North,  and  Major 
C.  S.  Coe,  the  wizard  who  built  the  famous  viaduct 
of  the  Florida  East  Coast  Railway  out  across  the 
sea-sprayed  reefs  where  experts  had  said  no  man 
could  build.  The  Commanding  Officer  of  this  En- 
gineer regiment,  I  might  add,  was  Colonel  John  S. 
Sewell,  who  is  now  in  command  of  the  whole  Base 
Section  upon  which  his  men  have  left  such  an  endur- 
ing mark. 

All  this  was  not  done  without  labour.  The  four 
hundred  coloured  stevedores,  yanked  from  sunny  cot- 
ton plantation  to  the  bitter  winter  coast  of  France, 
were  the  nucleus  of  the  labour  battalions  now  operat- 
ing in  this  Base  Section  which  number  7,600.  With 
the  willing,  cheerful,  and  uncomplaining  toil  of  these 
black  heroes  in  khaki  many  of  our  wonders  have  been 
achieved.  Jt  was  one  of  these  Southern  darkies  who 
contributed  a  classic  story  of  the  war.  When  Gen- 
eral Pershing  visited  this  port  he  made  a  speech  to 
the  stevedores  complimenting  them  on  their  splendid 
work.  He  concluded  by  saying  that  while  he  realised 
that  every  one  of  them  wanted  to  fight  some  one  had 
to  stay  behind  and  do  their  work.  He  added,  how- 
ever, that  the  men  with  the  best  records  would  have 
a  chance  to  go  "over  the  top."  This  phrase  caused 
much  discussion  among  the  negroes,  some  of  whom 
had  never  heard  it.  Every  one  had  his  own  defini- 
tion. Finally  one  of  them  rose  up  and  said: 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          75 

"Well  de  'top'  is  a  place  where  you  go  over,  and 
when  you  goes  you  say,  'Good  mawnin',  Jesus/  Dat's 
all." 

No  less  remarkable  are  the  engineering  results 
achieved  in  Base  Section  Number  Two  (Bordeaux), 
where  in  many  respects  a  really  stupendous  construc- 
tion effort  has  been  recorded.  This  port  serves  one 
of  the  largest  cities  in  France  and  is  on  a  famous 
river.  Here,  so  far  as  docks  are  concerned,  we  have 
registered  two  distinct  achievements.  When  we  en- 
tered the  war  there  were  berths  for  seven  ships  at 
the  so-called  French  Docks.  If  two  ships  could  be 
discharged  a  week  it  was  considered  a  big  job.  Again 
we  faced  a  well-nigh  overwhelming  problem  of  in- 
adequate facilities.  On  the  quays  were  a  few  sheds 
and  switchman's  shanties;  the  trackage  was  slight. 
Yet  at  those  French  Docks  to-day,  thanks  to  our 
dredging  and  construction,  seven  ships  can  discharge 
at  the  same  time  into  warehouses  big  as  city  blocks 
or  to  cars  that  bustle  up  and  down  many  miles  of 
newly  laid  rails. 

But  this  performance  was  as  child's-play  along- 
side the  really  amazing  feat  that  has  been  performed 
with  the  building  of  what  will  always  be  known  as 
the  American  Docks.  Those  first  seven  berths  were 
hopelessly  insufficient  for  our  needs,  so  the  Amer- 
ican Engineers  set  in  to  construct  a  whole  new  system 
of  piers  and  berths  along  the  river  and  extending 
north.  It  involved  more  than  4,000  linear  feet  of 
wharfage.  Never  in  the  history  of  similar  construc- 
tion have  just  such  obstacles  beset  builders  as  did 


76  S.  O.  S. 

those  myriad  difficulties  hedge  in  those  gallant  men 
in  khaki.  To  begin  with,  the  land  was  swampy  and 
low,  filled  in  with  silt,  mud,  garbage  and  the  decom- 
posed refuse  of  a  camp  of  Anamites,  the  Indo-Chi- 
nese coolies  who  are  employed  as  labourers  by  the 
French,  British  and  American  armies  in  thousands. 
Hip-deep  in  this  frightful  filth  our  men  toiled  all 
through  the  bitter  winter  of  1917-1918. 

The  French  said  that  it  would  take  three  years  at 
least,  possibly  five,  to  build  these  wharves.  It  took 
those  Americans  less  than  eight  months,  and  this 
meant  the  rearing  of  nearly  a  mile  of  docks,  washed 
by  the  highest  tide  in  France ;  the  erection  of  concrete 
platforms  with  four  lines  of  tracks;  eight  immense 
warehouses;  the  installation  of  ten  electric  five-  and 
ten-ton  cranes  which  straddle  these  tracks  and  lift 
huge  parcels  ranging  from  bundles  of  cases  of  canned 
goods  to  whole  motor  trucks  direct  from  ship  to  car. 
Nearly  7,000,000  cubic  feet  of  lumber,  most  of  it 
brought  from  the  United  States,  were  used  in  this 
enterprise.  That  sea  of  filth  and  swamp  and  garbage 
is  now  a  whirlpool  of  action — a  miniature  Duluth — 
that  rings  with  the  riot  of  a  mighty  tonnage  handled 
without  delay.  Where  once  two  ships  were  unloaded 
in  a  week  fourteen  American  vessels — a  thrilling 
sight  as  they  stretch  out  in  unbroken  line,  a  re- 
buke to  German  submarine  perils — are  now  dis- 
charged at  the  same  time.  A  ceaseless  stream  of  sup- 
plies flows  from  their  hatches. 

I  have  only  presented  one  side  of  the  construction 
picture  at  this  port.  Nine  miles  away  at  St.  Sulpice 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    57 

and  where  a  year  ago  stretched  hundreds  of  acres  of 
farm  and  vineyard,  has  risen  what  may  well  be  called 
"The  City  that  Grew  Over-Night."  Here  has  arisen 
another  one  of  our  enormous  Base  Supply  Depots 
(you  will  read  more  of  them  in  the  next  chapter) 
with  a  million  and  a  half  feet  of  covered  storage 
space  and  three  million  feet  of  open  storage  in  use. 
Linking  this  community  with  port  is  another  system 
of  tracks  and  switches — that  whole  net-work  of  rail- 
way receiving,  classification  and  departure  yards  that 
are  such  a  necessary  part  of  our  whole  supply  sys- 
tem. Once  more  you  have  the  marvel  of  labour 
expansion,  for  the  forty  original  stevedores  of  last 
autumn  have  grown  into  the  army  of  five  thousand 
that  toils  night  and  day.  At  first  these  labour  bat- 
talions slept  in  tents,  in  the  open  air,  anywhere  they 
could  lay  their  heads.  Their  spirit  of  sacrifice  is  only 
equalled  by  that  kindred  spirit  of  self-effacement  of 
this  regiment  of  Engineers  (which  includes  hundreds 
of  college  men  working  with  axe  and  spade)  which 
went  to  France  to  build  railways  and  which  has  done 
everything  from  installing  plumbing  fixtures,  shower 
baths  and  bakery  ovens  in  camps  to  building  docks, 
dams,  fire  stations  and  hospitals.  This  unit,  and  the 
work  it  has  done  is  merely  typical  of  what  all  the 
Engineer  organisations  have  done,  was  originally  in 
command  of  Colonel  J.  B.  Cavanaugh;  who  left  that 
battleground  of  pick  and  pile  to  become  head  of  the 
no  less  important,  if  less  physically  exacting,  Gi  at 
the  Headquarters  of  the  S.  O.  S. 

In  this  necessarily  brief  and  bird's-eye  view  of  what 


78  S.  O.  S. 

we  have  done  in  these  two  ports  you  get  an  idea  of 
what  has  been  going  on  in  various  ways  at  the  others 
that  we  use.  Everywhere  we  have  dug  and  dredged ; 
laid  down  tracks;  built  warehouses;  set  up  machinery; 
all  to  the  end  that  ships  could  be  berthed  and  their 
cargo  unloaded. 

But  this  was  just  the  initial  phase  of  the  larger 
traffic  task.  The  men  and  freight  had  to  be  evac- 
uated from  the  ports  and  sent  to  depot,  camp,  project 
and  the  front.  We  had  to  have  a  transportation 
system  all  our  own  and,  once  launched,  it  followed 
with  a  rapidity  that  almost  rivalled  the  growth  of  the 
seaboard  facilities.  Summed  up  here  is  what  has 
happened : 

On  July  ist,  1917,  it  did  not  exist.  Twelve  months 
later  saw  it  complete  in  every  working  department 
and  operating  a  system  of  railways  larger  than  any 
important  group  in  the  United  States.  It  handles 
tens  of  thousands  of  tons  of  supplies  at  many  ports; 
owns  hundreds  of  locomotives  and  thousands  of  cars 
all  erected  in  France;  repairs  worn-out  French,  Bel- 
gian and  its  own  equipment  in  enormous  shops;  has 
a  personnel  of  over  1,300  officers  and  40,000  men  and 
conducts  a  canal  system  which  vies  with  that  of  Hol- 
land. Starting  with  operations  at  a  single  port  it  is 
in  full  swing  from  the  Channel  to  the  Mediterranean. 
From  a  French  train  in  charge  of  an  American  officer 
our  supply-carrying  scope  has  grown  to  an  all-Amer- 
ican train — crew,  equipment,  freight,  everything 
Yankee  except  the  rails — which  runs  from  the  sea 
to  the  borderland  of  fighting,  a  distance  of  482  miles. 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    79 

The  complete  operation  of  a  French  railway  for  both 
civil  and  military  traffic  by  Americans  is  among  the 
near  possibilities  of  a  war  that  has  made  the  impos- 
sible possible. 

Our  whole  transportation  scheme  in  France  was 
started  right,  because  that  original  Railway  Commis- 
sion— wise  in  its  foresight — realised  that  our  railway 
structure  overseas  must  be  dominated  by  seasoned 
railroad  men.  British  experience  justified  this  judg- 
ment. It  was  not  until  that  Wizard  of  Traffic  and 
Master-Doer,  in  War,  Sir  Eric  Geddes,  had  been 
taken  from  his  desk  as  General  Manager  of  the  North 
Eastern  Railway  in  England  and  ultimately  made 
Director  General  of  Transportation  of  the  British 
Expeditionary  Forge  that  the  light  railways  began 
to  follow  the  trail  of  the  Tommy  and  the  whole  war 
transportation  proposition  bristled  with  results.  We 
therefore  escaped  the  costly  mistake  of  first  entrust- 
ing our  railways  to  soldiers  without  practical  expe- 
rience. 

The  beginning  of  our  Transportation  Department 
dates  from  July,  1917,  when  three  members  of  the 
Commission — Major  Parsons,  Major  Wilgus  and 
Captain  Barber — were  assigned  to  the  Chief  En- 
gineer of  the  A.  E.  F.,  then  Colonel  and  now  Briga- 
dier General  Harry  Taylor,  and  instructed  to  formu- 
late a  plan.  Major  Parsons,  however,  got  permis- 
sion to  rejoin  his  regiment  of  Engineers;  Captain 
Barber  was  assigned  to  Staff  duty,  so  Major  Wilgus 
was  left  on  the  job  and  with  only  one  assistant — 
Captain  L.  A.  Jenny,  who  had  left  the  New  York 


80  S.  O.  S. 

Central  Railway  to  accompany  General  Pershing  to 
France. 

Under  conditions  as  picturesque  as  they  were  re- 
markable was  the  birth  of  this  system.  In  a  back 
room  of  a  building  at  149  Boulevard  Haussmann  in 
Paris,  then  the  Engineering  Headquarters  of  the 
A.  E.  F.,  using  an  army  packing  case  for  a  desk  and 
seated  on  an  empty  starch  box  (for  there  was  prac- 
tically no  office  furniture)  Major  Wilgus,  aided  by 
Captain  Jenny,  prepared  what  is  technically  known 
as  Requisition  Number  Six — the  first  definite  step 
toward  the  creation  of  that  far-flung  steam-driven 
organisation  which  to-day  links  up  all  our  whole 
overseas  ports.  This  document  was  a  Bill  of  Mate- 
rial, in  terms  of  gauges,  units,  initial  stocks  and 
monthly  needs,  for  the  equipment  of  a  complete 
transportation  system  from  spikes  to  locomotives  for 
an  army  of  undetermined  size  and  for  a  year  in  ad- 
vance. Nothing  just  like  it  had  ever  been  done  be- 
fore. It  was  based  on  pure  assumption  backed  up 
by  technical  knowledge.  Tribute  to  its  accuracy  is 
the  astonishing  fact  that  it  remains  to-day  the  basis 
of  the  whole  automatic  railway  supply  for  our  Ex- 
peditionary Force.  Expanded  it  could  easily  meet 
the  requirements  of  a  system  equal  to  that  of  the 
Pennsylvania  or  the  New  York  Central.  Henceforth 
— as  in  the  case  of  the  Automatic  Food  Supply — it 
was  only  necessary  to  cable  for  quantities  of  supplies 
indicated  on  this  Master  Requisition.  This  docu- 
ment was  cabled  to  America — oddly  enough — on 
July  1 4th  (Bastille  Day) — a  date  memorable  alike 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          81 

in  French  history  and  also,  by  reason  of  this  event, 
in  the  annals  of  railway  transportation. 

Meanwhile  some  step  had  to  be  taken  to  organise 
a  working  Department.  The  Lines  of  Communica- 
tion \ forerunner  of  the  Services  of  Supply)  had 
been  established  with  Brigadier  General  R.  M. 
Blatchford  in  command.  Transportation  logically 
belonged  to  his  domain,  so  Major  Wilgus  was  made 
a  member  of  his  staff  as  Director  of  Railways.  Early 
in  August,  1917,  the  first  personnel  came  out  to  help 
him  in  the  shape  of  a  few  draftsmen,  stenographers 
and  clerks.  They  were  the  outposts  of  that  army  of 
practical  railroad  men  now  in  France  who  left  jobs 
ranging  from  $140  a  month  as  a  signalman  to  $100,- 
ooo  a  year  as  President  and  General  Manager,  to  do 
their  bit  abroad. 

From  the  start  General  Pershing  was  convinced 
that  the  head  of  his  railway  system  must  be  a  man 
of  large  experience  in  managing  commercial  railways 
at  home.  In  this  belief  he  cabled  to  the  Secretary  of 
War  on  July  29th  suggesting  that  the  ablest  railroad 
men  in  the  United  States  be  sent  over.  After  a  care- 
ful canvass  Mr.  Baker  asked  W.  W.  Atterbury,  then 
Vice-President  in  charge  of  operations  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad,  if  he  would  go  to  France  and 
undertake  the  all-important  task  of  Director  General 
of  Transportation.  Mr.  Atterbury  accepted;  sailed 
at  once,  and  arrived  in  Paris  on  August  3ist.  He 
found  transportation  plans  launched  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Major  Wilgus,  and  not  only  endorsed  them 
but  declared  that  he  was  content  to  return  to  the 


82  S.  O.  S. 

United  States  and  leave  the  Director  of  Railways  in 
charge.  Since  Mr.  Atterbury  had  been  sent  by  the 
Secretary  of  War  Major  Wilgus  believed  that  the 
arrangement  should  stand.  When  the  Chief  Engineer 
communicated  this  desire  to  G.  H.  Q.,  General  Persh- 
ing  formally  appointed  Mr.  Atterbury  Director  Gen- 
eral of  Transportation  without  military  rank.  Sub- 
sequently he  was  made  a  Brigadier  General.  The 
Commander-in-Chief  asked  Major  Wilgus  to  join 
the  General  Staff.  Mr.  Atterbury,  however,  ex- 
pressed his  need  of  him  so  strongly  that  he  remained 
in  the  work  that  he  had  launched  as  Deputy  Director 
General  of  Transportation.  Thus  two  strong  men, 
each  with  a  distinguished  service,  joined  for  the  gi- 
gantic service  that  lay  ahead. 

General  Atterbury  brought  to  his  post  a  typical 
American  railroad  training.  Although  a  Yale  grad- 
uate in  mechanical  engineering  he  rose  from  artisan 
in  overalls  in  the  Pennsylvania  shops  at  Altoona  to 
one  of  the  supreme  posts  in  the  system.  An  organ- 
iser and  an  achiever,  he  at  once  made  things  happen, 
but  not  until  he  had  found  out  what  had  to  be  done, 
how  to  do  it,  and  what  help  was  needed.  His  first 
action,  therefore,  was  to  take  a  trip  over  all  the 
railways  and  ports  that  we  were  to  use. 

As  a  result,  and  to  declare  a  general  working  pol- 
icy, he  approved  a  plan  adopted  in  the  early  days 
which  committed  the  American  Expeditionary  Force 
to  running  its  own  trains  made  up  of  American  loco- 
motives and  cars  and  manned  by  American  crews 
under  trackage  rights  over  French  railroads  by  sev- 


BRIGADIER  GENERAL  W.  VV.  ATTERBURY 
Director  General  of  Transportation,  A.  E.  F. 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    83 

eral  routes  from  the  sea  to  the  front,  which  meant, 
all  lines  considered,  a  distance  of  six  hundred  miles. 
This  remains  the  scheme  under  which  we  operate. 
At  the  same  time  the  Light  Railways  which  are  really 
part  of  the  operations  of  the  Combat  Army  were  put 
in  charge  of  Brigadier  General  W.  C.  Langfitt,  while 
the  control  of  Roads  fell  to  Brigadier  General  J.  H. 
McKinstry. 

The  "D.  G.  of  T."  (as  the  head  of  Transportation  is 
called  for  short)  was  now  free  to  concentrate  on  the 
standard  gauge  steam  job.  His  ideal  was  to  create 
an  army  railway  organisation  just  like  any  American 
commercial  railway  system,  and  this  is  precisely  what 
he  has  done  in  every  detail  from  top  to  bottom,  includ- 
ing a  Lost  Baggage  Division.  To-day  it  only  differs 
in  all  major  respects  from  the  Harriman  or  Hill  sys- 
tems in  that  it  does  not  have  to  solicit  business  and 
has  no  financial  worries.  Other  anxieties,  however, 
make  up  for  this  immunity  from  money  troubles.  It 
meant  having  a  President,  Vice-President,  a  General 
Manager  with  all  necessary  aids  charged  with  opera- 
tion, maintenance  of  way  and  equipment;  a  Business 
Manager  to  look  after  fiscal  matters,  and  a  Chief 
Engineer  for  design  and  construction. 

With  the  approval  of  the  "C.  in  G,"  General  Atter- 
bury  filled  these  posts  with  live  railroad  men  of  his 
own  choosing.  Now  came  the  first  appearance  of  an 
All-Star  Cast  in  the  Great  Drama  of  American  Rail- 
way Operation  in  France.  J.  A.  McCrea,  son  of  the 
late  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  retired 
from  the  General  Managership  of  the  Long  Island 


84  S.  O.  S. 

Railway  to  become  General  Manager  of  the  Amer- 
ican Army  system  abroad;  C.  M.  Bunting  left  his 
desk  as  Comptroller  of  the  Pennsylvania  to  be  Busi- 
ness Manager;  and  H.  C.  Booz  went  from  Assistant 
Chief  Engineer  of  the  same  system  to  become  En- 
gineer of  Construction  over  there.  M.  C.  Kennedy 
changed  from  the  Presidency  of  the  Cumberland 
Valley  Railroad  to  be  Deputy  Director  General  of 
Transportation  in  England,  where  our  troop  and 
freight  activities  were  soon  to  be  extensive.  All  four 
were  made  Colonels  soon  after  their  arrival  and 
merged  into  the  military  establishment.  With  Gen- 
eral Atterbury,  and  Colonel  Wilgus,  who  had  been 
promoted,  they  formed  the  small  group  that  evolved 
the  whole  system  of  American  transportation  abroad 
that  has  met  every  one  of  the  five  expansions  in  the 
numerical  scope  of  our  forces  abroad. 

Handicap,  which  was  synonymous  with  our  whole 
early  effort  in  France,  at  once  took  up  its  abode  with 
the  "D.  G.  of  T."  He  faced  complications,  both  phys- 
ical and  temperamental,  that  tried  the  soul,  harried  the 
patience  and  made  every  test  of  tact,  resource  and 
ingenuity.  We  had  to  haul  supplies  at  once,  so  the 
first  trains  were  sent  out  with  French  cars,  French 
equipment  and  with  an  American  officer  in  each  Sec- 
tion. 

To  understand  General  Atterbury's  problem,  you 
must  know  that  fundamentally  our  whole  transporta- 
tion system  in  France  had  to  be  built  around  our  sup- 
ply system.  General  Pershing,  at  that  historic  meet- 
ing in  the  Rue  Constantine  where  the  A.  E.  F.  was 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    85 

born,  had  decided  with  his  advisers  that  a  ninety  days' 
reserve  of  supplies  must  be  kept  in  France.  It  is 
divided  into  three  Sections.  Forty-five  days  must  be 
held  at  the  Base  ports ;  thirty  days  in  the  Intermediate 
Section,  and  fifteen  days  in  the  Advance  Section. 
Thus  the  whole  fabric  of  traffic  had  to  bend  to  this 
all-essential  end,  which  meant  the  safety  and  success 
of  our  cause  overseas. 

The  difficulties  that  lay  in  the  way  of  swift  Amer- 
ican-like operation  were  many.  First  of  all  were 
those  four  great  national  strategic  railways  that  run 
from  North  to  South.  They  were  laid  out  to  expedite 
troop  movements  to  the  frontier,  especially  the  Ger- 
man. The  American  front  was  to  be  in  a  part  of 
France  which,  to  be  accessible  to  us,  necessitated  the 
crossing  of  these  vital  arteries.  Our  feat  was  to  cross 
but  not  to  impair  them.  Hence  we  had  to  dig  under 
or  build  over  them.  So  far  it  meant  the  construction 
of  over  600  miles  of  switches,  bridges,  tunnels  and 
cut-offs. 

This  was  only  one  obstacle.  All  French  trains  are 
switched  at  stations;  we  do  this  job  outside  the  sta- 
tions. French  cars  are  all  hand-braked  and  coupled, 
while  we  use  the  air-brake  both  for  coupling  and  stop- 
ping. The  French  currents  of  traffic,  like  the  British, 
use  the  left-hand  track  where  we  use  the  right.  French 
signals  differ  from  our  own  in  many  respects.  The 
only  thing  that  the  two  systems  had  in  common  was 
the  fact  that  red  was  universal  signal  of  danger.  To 
cap  it  all,  French  car  control,  that  is  keeping  track  of 


86  S.  O.  S. 

freight  cars,  as  compared  with  our  arrangements,  was 
crude  to  say  the  least. 

In  addition,  our  men  had  to  buck  the  French  lan- 
guage and  French  customs,  which  was  about  the  hard- 
est job  of  all.  The  French  railroad  employe,  in  com- 
mon with  his  brother  in  city  shop,  takes  two  hours  for 
his  sacred  dejeuner  in  the  middle  of  the  day.  When 
our  railroad  hands  came  along  with  a  dinner  pail  that 
was  literally  emptied  on  the  run  they  thought  we  were 
savages.  When  we  tried  to  get  similar  action  out  of 
the  French  there  was  almost  a  riot.  Thus  you  see 
that  our  railway  pioneers  had  some  difficulties  to  face. 

General  Atterbury  found  that  the  French  railways 
were  in  a  surprisingly  good  condition  considering  their 
incessant  usage  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  What 
was  even  more  astonishing,  they  were  capable  of  stand- 
ing more  traffic  than  was  being  put  on  them.  But  they 
lacked  equipment.  This  meant  that  we  had  to  have 
our  own  tools  of  traffic.  Fortunately  that  famous 
Requisition  Number  Six  was  already  at  work  and  the 
rolling  stock  began  to  arrive.  It  is  all  knocked  down 
in  America  for  shipment  and  must  be  erected  in 
France.  We  had  to  find  or  construct  shops,  and  all 
this  took  much  time  and  more  worry.  But  the  wheels 
were  soon  whirring  and  a  phenomenal  progress  has 
been  achieved.  We  have  reached  the  point  where  we 
now  average  the  erection  of  five  no-ton  locomotives 
a  day.  Already  we  have  1,000  Consolidation  American 
engines  in  France,  and  we  have  ordered  nearly  2,000 
more.  In  addition  to  these,  we  have  acquired  240 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    87 

Belgian  locomotives  that  were  run  out  of  King  Albert's 
country  when  the  Hun  invasion  began. 

No  less  remarkable  is  the  car  erection  record.  On 
September  ist,  1918,  we  had  over  7,000  American  cars 
in  France,  including  box,  flat,  gondola,  tank  and  re- 
frigerator types.  During  the  first  fifteen  days  of 
August  we  averaged  a  daily  erection  of  70  cars  and 
on  one  day  139  were  put  up  and  sent  away  on  their 
own  wheels.  The  average  American  freight  car  that 
we  use  in  France  is  30  tons  capacity,  while  the  aver- 
age French  has  only  10  tons.  The  American  loco- 
motive averages  no  tons;  the  French  60.  The  draw- 
ing power  of  our  locomotives  startles  the  French,  es- 
pecially when  our  great  engines  haul  loads  of  1,500 
tons  as  easily  as  their  engines  pull  100  tons. 

On  top  of  this  erection  we  have  to  build  yards, 
terminals,  sheds,  switches,  spurs,  water  tanks,  sidings, 
ash  dumps,  coal  pockets — the  many  accessories  that 
go  to  make  steam  transportation  possible.  It  has 
meant  a  continuous  activity  that  touched  every  phase 
of  transportation. 

All  this  needed  a  vast  personnel  both  for  construc- 
tion and  operation.  Those  pioneer  Engineer  regi- 
ments who  came  over  at  the  first  call  for  service  had 
to  be  supplemented  by  many  thousands  of  men  repre- 
senting a  varied  technical  experience.  You  get  some 
idea  of  personnel  needs  when  I  say  that  to  operate  a 
railway  system  for  an  army  of  one  million  men  the 
full  working  transportation  complement  is  exactly  63,- 
034  men,  which  includes  8  Stevedore  regiments,  4 
Operating  regiments,  2  Maintenance  of  Way  regi- 


88  S.  O.  S. 

ments,  i  Maintenance  of  Equipment  regiment  and  4 
Car  and  Shop  regiments.  This  personnel  is  organised 
in  battalions  by  classifications,  which  include  En- 
gineers, Conductors,  Train  Despatchers,  Yard  Clerks, 
Flagmen,  Firemen,  Boiler-Makers,  Switchmen,  Black- 
smiths and  Boiler-Washers. 

Where  did  all  the  operatives  come  from  ?  Here  is 
a  little  story  which  will  tell  you  how  one  kind  of  em- 
ploye was  recruited.  During  the  latter  part  of  the 
summer  of  1917  a  big-boned  fireman  who  had  a  regu- 
lar run  out  of  Laramie,  Wyoming,  heard  some  men 
standing  on  the  platform  mention  the  need  of  engine 
drivers  for  the  American  Army  in  France.  This  man, 
whom  we  will  familiarly  call  Roger,  was  one  year 
over  the  draft  age,  but  that  did  not  deter  him.  He 
had  always  wanted  to  go  to  France.  He  also  hankered 
to  get  into  the  war.  Here  was  his  opportunity.  When 
Roger  got  back  from  his  run  he  went  to  the  nearest 
recruiting  station  and  enlisted.  In  the  course  of  a 
few  weeks  he  got  to  France,  where  he  was  classified 
as  engineer.  When  they  showed  him  the  locomotive 
that  he  was  to  drive  his  guffaw  could  have  been  heard 
miles  away.  It  was  one  of  the  little  Belgian  engines 
about  the  size  of  the  tender  of  the  little  mountain 
engine  he  had  used  in  his  apprenticeship.  He  called 
it  a  watch-charm! 

It  did  not  take  Roger  long  to  master  its  kinks. 
The  way  he  jerked  the  cars  around  the  yards  was 
both  a  revelation  and  a  terror  to  the  French.  His 
fireman,  who  shall  be  known  as  Jerry,  came  from 
the  Southern  Pacific.  He  had  seen  some  railroading 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    89 

under  war-time  conditions  because  his  run  had  been 
in  and  out  of  El  Paso  during  the  period  of  our  mobili- 
sation on  the  Mexican  border.  A  few  weeks  after 
they  had  been  doing  the  stunts  with  the  toy  locomotive 
in  the  freight  yard  at  the  French  port  a  real  American 
locomotive — the  first  in  France — was  set  up.  There 
was  almost  a  knock-down  and  drag-out  fight  among 
the  soldiers  as  to  who  should  have  this  American 
engine.  While  the  fight  was  going  on,  Roger  and 
Jerry  sneaked  off,  had  an  interview  with  the  proper 
officer  and  then  mounted  the  American  steel  monster. 
To-day  they  are  pulling  long  freight  trains  over  the 
heaviest  run  of  the  entire  American  railway  in  France. 
Both  being  single,  they  know  every  girl  along  the 
road,  and  there  is  always  an  affable  chat  with  one 
of  them  every  time  they  stop  for  water.  Roger  has 
sixteen  French  words  in  his  vocabulary  and  Jerry 
twelve.  But  after  the  manner  of  the  American  sol- 
dier in  France,  they  manage  to  get  away  with  all 
necessary  conversation. 

Roger  and  Jerry  have  hundreds  of  prototypes  in 
the  army  of  railway  operatives  who  daily  cause  con- 
sternation among  the  French  in  the  way  they  handle 
trains.  One  day  a  block  signal  was  set  against  an 
American  freight  train  at  a  small  town  in  the  In- 
termediate Section.  Half  a  mile  away  the  engineer 
of  the  train  saw  how  the  block  was  set  and  that  he 
had  to  stop.  He  was  going  at  full  speed,  making  time 
that  fairly  took  the  breath  away  from  the  French 
who  were  congregated  at  the  station.  They  got  the 
idea  that  he  had  not  seen  the  signal  and  was  going 


90  S.  O.  S. 

to  run  through  it.  The  result  was  that  every  native 
in  sight  began  to  wave  everything  he  could  lay  hands 
on  from  flags  to  towels  in  a  mad  effort  to  stop  the 
American  train  and  avert  what  seemed  to  be  an  in- 
evitable and  disastrous  wreck,  because  a  passenger 
train  was  in  the  block.  As  the  French  viewed  it,  a 
miracle  happened.  Two  hundred  yards  away  the 
American  engineer  started  to  apply  his  air-brakes  and 
pulled  up  at  the  station  with  grace  and  ease  just  at 
the  very  spot  that  the  French  wished  him  to  stop. 
When  the  Gauls  got  their  breath  they  were  in  that 
state  of  ecstasy  and  acclaim  that  only  Frenchmen  can 
develop  over  an  artistic  performance.  They  are  still 
talking  about  it. 

Roger  and  Jerry  and  all  their  mates  who  have  come 
from  practically  every  railroad  in  the  United  States 
to  help  win  the  war  with  throttle  and  switch  in  France 
had  to  study  French  methods.  The  way  they  grasped 
the  complicated  system  is  just  another  evidence  of 
Yankee  adaptability  which  is  among  the  wonders  of 
the  war.  Two  Books  of  Rules  were  necessary.  One, 
which  we  shall  designate  A,  governs  operations  for 
the  all- American  trains  and  is  all-English ;  the  other — 
Book  B — is  for  our  employes  engaged  in  joint  opera- 
tion with  the  French.  The  men  in  the  main  have 
to  master  both. 

The  first  contains,  among  other  things,  a  reproduc- 
tion of  all  types  of  train  orders,  signals,  block  sys- 
tem rules,  and  a  dictionary  of  transportation  words 
and  expressions  ranging  from  engine  to  train  regis- 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    91 

ters.  It  also  sets  forth  the  fact  that,  so  far  as  time 
is  concerned,  the  Continental  System  is  used. 

Here  we  get  to  one  of  the  toughest  nuts  that  the 
American  railroad  man  in  France  has  been  called  upon 
to  crack,  because  the  French  railway  time  tables  use 
this  Continental  System — that  is,  I  to  24  o'clock. 
This  means  that  3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  American 
time  is  15  o'clock  French  railway  time;  II  p.m. 
American  time  is  23  o'clock,  and  so  on.  Thus  the 
veteran  engineer  whose  orders  on  the  Union  Pacific 
would  have  read :  "Pass  blank  station  at  4.30  p.m.," 
must  adapt  himself  to  a  similar  instruction  in  France 
which  says:  "Pass  blank  station  at  16.30  o'clock." 
But  like  his  parles-vous-ing  with  the  French  girls,  he 
again  gets  away  with  it. 

Of  course  Book  A  is  the  easiest  to  digest  because 
it  deals  with  rules  familiar  to  all  American  operatives. 
Book  B,  however,  which  is  printed  in  both  English 
and  French — the  parallel  text  is  on  opposite  pages — 
is  the  hard  one.  It  sets  forth  the  regulations  in  effect 
on  the  Est,  the  Etat,  the  P.L.M.  (Paris,  Lyons  & 
Mediterranean)  and  the  P.O.  (Paris-Orleans).  These 
are  the  four  great  French  railway  systems  to  which 
I  have  already  referred. 

Dig  into  this  little  red  Traffic  Bible  and  you  see 
at  once  how  difficult  is  the  job  of  the  Yankee  operator 
on  these  French  lines.  Scores  of  our  engineers  are 
running  French  locomotives  that  pull  full  complete 
French  trains.  Here  is  an  illustration.  On  the  Etat, 
P.O.  and  Est  Railways,  when  the  semaphore  signal 
is  located  at  a  station  where  the  train  is  required 


92  S.  O.  S. 

to  stop,  the  signal  may  be  passed  to  make  the  neces- 
sary stop.  On  the  P.L.M.  there  is  no  exception.  The 
stop  must  be  made  before  passing  the  signal.  This 
is  just  one  example  of  what  Roger  and  Jerry  must 
pack  into  their  heads  in  order  to  avoid  a  conflict  with 
rules  which  in  France  is  as  bad  as  a  criminal  offence. 

So  complete  is  our  system  of  instruction  that  an 
American  flagman  sent  back  to  warn  a  train  in  case 
of  a  wreck  or  unexpected  delay  in  traflic,  carries  a 
complete  set  of  cards  printed  in  both  French  and  Eng- 
lish, setting  forth  the  specific  message  that  he  must 
deliver.  It  all  shows  that  we  are  taking  no  chances 
on  having  wrecks  due  either  to  carelessness,  misunder- 
standing, or  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  French  lan- 
guage. 

The  Transportation  Department  has  schools  for 
all  ranks,  and  notably  for  the  highly  useful  individual 
known  as  the  Railway  Transport  Officer  or  the  "R.T. 
O./'  as  he  is  more  widely  called.  With  the  British 
he  simply  acts  as  a  first-aid  to  passenger  traffic,  stamps 
railway  warrants  and  helps  troops  as  they  pass 
through.  With  us,  however,  the  R.T.O.  has  a  dual 
capacity.  He  may  be  one  of  these  passenger  officials, 
or  he  may  also  handle  a  full-fledged  traffic  job  at 
a  Supply  Depot  or  a  Regulating  Station.  At  some 
of  these  places  as  many  as  five  hundred  cars  are 
handled  in  a  single  day.  It  is  his  work  to  see  that 
trains  are  properly  made  up  and  sent  on  to  their 
destination.  Hence  the  School  of  Instruction  must 
include  a  complete  course  in  traffic  and  also  a  good 
dose  of  human  nature.  I  asked  a  certain  high  trans- 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          93 

portation  officer  in  France  what  constituted  the  equip- 
ment of  an  efficient  R.T.O.,  and  he  replied : 

"Twenty-five  per  cent  French  language;  twenty- 
five  per  cent  railway  knowledge;  twenty-five  per  cent 
diplomacy  and  twenty-five  per  cent  common  sense." 

To-day  you  can  find  an  American  passenger  R.T.O. 
at  every  station  of  any  consequence  used  by  our 
troops  all  the  way  from  the  British  Channel  down 
beyond  the  Italian  frontier.  His  freight  brother  is 
likewise  hard  at  it  at  scores  of  places,  often  working 
twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty- four  because  supply 
trains  must  be  kept  moving  regardless  of  sacrifice. 
Some  of  these  men,  like  their  Engineer  comrades  who 
toil  with  pick  and  shovel,  perform  heroic  tasks. 

Despite  the  almost  unending  demands  made  on  their 
time  and  knowledge,  they  are  not  without  their  sense 
of  humour,  as  the  following  report  made  by  a  new 
"R.T.O."  to  his  Chief  indicates: 

"The  following  memo,  of  the  first  thirty  hours  of 
a  new  R.  T.  O.  at  a  perfectly  new  station  might  be 
of  interest.  Station  is  Division  Hdqrs.  No  R.  T.  O. 
has  been  here  previously.  The  writer  arrived  at  6.30 
p.m.,  and  after  one  look  at  the  congested  yard  and 
unloading  space  covered  with  every  imaginable  prop- 
erty, from  cottonwood  logs  which  predominated  to 
barracks  bags,  he  decided  that  supper  and  a  sleep 
were  necessary  before  further  efforts  were  made. 
The  diary  of  the  day  follows:  6.30  Petit  dejeuner; 
6.40  at  yard  handing  out  bull  and  cigars  to  the  Station 
Master,  who  is  by  the  way  a  fine  old  fellow;  7.00 
a.m.  assigned  to  an  office  the  best  there  was,  and  a 
good  one;  7.45  had  two  engines  at  work  clearing  yard; 


94  S.  O.  S. 

8.30  paid  respects  to  Commanding  General  and  Chief 
of  Staff  and  got  assignment  of  a  detail ;  9.30  checked 
yard  and  arranged  for  detraining  a  solid  train  load; 
at  i.oo  p.m.  arranged  for  billet;  1.40  p.m.  train  ar- 
rives, 2.20  troops  all  out  of  station  and  train  gone, 
3.00  to  5.00  answering  fool  questions,  6.00  to  7.00 
supper;  8.10  Train  of  troops  detained  and  led  to 
camp;  11.35  Train  of  troops  detrained;  served  coffee 
and  'herded*  to  camp;  4.20  a.m.  Train  of  troops  ditto, 
only  worse.  Have  been  asked  more  fool  questions  in 
twenty-four  hours  than  ever  before.  Now  I  will  send 
some  telegrams  and  sleep  all  of  two  hours.  It  is  a  gay 


lire." 


Still  another  evidence  of  the  kind  of  drama  that 
bobs  up  in  transportation  reports  is  in  one,  a  copy 
of  which  lies  before  me  as  I  write.  It  is  a  message 
from  a  train  despatcher  up  near  the  front  who  is 
ordering  a  certain  blank  form.  The  reason  that  he 
gives  is  this : 

"Lieutenant  Blank  interrupted  while  giving  report. 
Said  bomb  exploded  just  then.  Blew  in  window  caus- 
ing candle  to  set  sheet  on  fire." 

Behind  this  simple  statement  told  in  bald  official 
fashion  was  a  story  of  sacrifice  and  danger  that 
would  never  figure  in  public  report  and  never  know 
recognition.  The  way  of  the  railroad  employe, 
whether  in  war  or  peace,  is  the  way  of  obscure  but 
heroic  devotion. 

The  army  of  humble  yard-men,  engineers,  switch- 
men and  section  hands  who  rushed  to  the  railway 
colours  is  matched  by  the  smaller  but  none  the  less 
patriotic  group  of  higher  officials  who  are  part  of 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          95 

the  transportation  fabric  in  France.  You  encounter 
them  everywhere.  One  day  I  saw  a  buck  private 
standing  in  line  at  the  mid-day  mess  to  get  his  tin 
of  "slum  gullion,"  as  the  army  stew  is  called.  My 
companion,  an  officer  in  the  Railway  Transportation 
Corps,  pointed  to  him  and  said:  "That  man  left  a 
ten  thousand  dollar  a  year  railway  job  to  enlist  as 
a  private  at  three  dollars  a  month.  He  is  now  my 
orderly."  It  is  not  an  unusual  case. 

Run  the  roster  of  our  transportation  officials 
abroad  and  you  will  see  why  I  called  it  an  All-Star 
Cast.  It  includes,  in  addition  to  those  I  have  already 
mentioned,  Colonel  H.  G.  Maxfield,  formerly  Super- 
intendent of  Motive  Power  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road; Lieutenant  Colonel  H.  H.  Adams,  who  was 
President  of  the  Kansas  City  Terminal  Railways; 
Lieutenant  Colonel  V.  R.  C.  King,  who  was  Termi- 
nal Superintendent  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  Line;  Lieu- 
tenant Colonel  Neddleton  Neff,  once  Division  Super- 
intendent of  the  Pennsylvania  Lines  West ;  Lieutenant 
Colonel  H.  J.  Slifer,  former  General  Manager  of  the 
Chicago  Great  Western;  Major  F.  A.  Delano,  one 
of  the  best  railroad  men  in  the  United  States,  and 
who  left  the  Federal  Reserve  Board  to  join  the  army; 
Major  F.  G.  Robbins,  former  General  Superintendent 
of  the  Erie ;  Major  G.  T.  Slade,  who  was  Vice  Presi- 
dent of  the  Northern  Pacific;  Major  H.  W.  Hinkle, 
General  Superintendent  Toledo,  St.  Louis  &  Western ; 
Major  E.  B.  Cushing,  General  Superintendent  of  the 
Southern  Pacific  Line;  and  scores  of  others,  all  con- 
tent to  toil  at  improvised  rough  board  tables  on  occa- 


96  S.  O.  S. 

sion  instead  of  the  mahogany  desks  over  which  they 
once  presided. 

At  the  head  of  this  Empire  of  Tracks  and  Traffic 
is  General  Atterbury  with  his  hand  at  the  throttle.  So 
complete  and  co-ordinated  is  the  organisation  that 
there  is  laid  on  his  desk  every  morning  a  single  type- 
written sheet  a  little  more  than  a  foot  square  which 
sets  forth — and  the  figures  are  up  to  the  preceding 
midnight — the  number  of  ships  in  every  port  that 
we  use  in  France;  the  number  of  vessels  unloaded 
the  day  before;  the  tonnage  discharged;  the  number 
of  freight  cars  of  all  types  that  were  unloading;  the 
empty  cars  received ;  the  barges  shipped  and  the  ton- 
nage loaded  on  these  barges;  and  a  statement  of 
weather  conditions  in  every  port.  Attached  is  a  brief 
resume  of  the  number  of  ships  not  being  unloaded  and 
the  reason  why. 

This  Daily  Situation,  as  it  is  called,  is  just  one 
more  exhibit  in  the  gallery  of  our  army  business  ef- 
ficiency. We  can  now  go  ahead  and  see  how  it  is 
made  up.  It  means  a  brief  inspection  trip  over  the 
system  of  the  Transportation  Department,  now  one  of 
the  Services  of  Supply,  which  means  that  its  Head- 
quarters are  at  Tours. 

In  a  small  room  on  the  second  floor  of  one  of  these 
weather-beaten  buildings  is  the  office  of  the  Director 
General  of  Transportation.  On  the  walls  are  those 
familiar  blue-print  charts  of  organisation  which  you 
find  in  the  room  of  every  department  head  of  the 
A.E.F.  Likewise,  there  are  charts  showing  density 
of  traffic.  It  means  that  with  Transportation,  just 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC    97 

as  with  Food  and  Mechanical  Transport,  everything 
is  diagramed. 

The  D.G.  of  T.'s  right-hand  is  the  Deputy  Director 
of  Transportation — Colonel  Wilgus — who  exercises  a 
supervision  over  all  routine  and  which  thus  leaves 
the  head  of  the  system  free  to  move  about.  Instead 
of  using  a  private  car  as  an  American  railroad  Presi- 
dent would  use,  General  Atterbury  goes  about  in  a 
high-powered  automobile,  which  enables  him  to  in- 
spect construction  jobs  right  up  to  the  point  of  pick 
and  shovel  and  know  what  is  going  on  up  to  the 
hour. 

The  work  of  every  one  of  the  important  Heads 
of  Departments  is  concretely  charted.  For  the  sake 
of  illustration  I  will  take  the  work  of  the  General 
Manager.  Under  him  are  an  Assistant  General  Man- 
ager, and  also  an  Assistant  General  Manager  in  the 
Advance  Section  who  is  the  link  with  the  transporta- 
tion of  the  Combat  armies;  a  General  Superintendent 
of  Transportation;  a  General  Superintendent  of  Mo- 
tive Power;  a  Superintendent  of  Telegraph  and  Tele- 
phone; and  an  Engineer  of  Maintenance  of  Way. 
Various  sub-departments  include  a  Car  Record  Office, 
a  Car  Order  Office,  a  Troop  Movement  Bureau,  and 
a  Lost  Baggage  Bureau.  Under  the  General  Superin- 
tendent of  Motive  Power  of  course  come  the  various 
Shop  Superintendents.  Our  whole  system  of  rail- 
way operation  in  France  is  divided  into  five  lines, 
known  as  the  A,  B,  C,  D  and  E  lines — each  one  like 
the  Pennsylvania  Lines  West  of  Pittsburgh,  for  ex- 
ample, with  a  General  Superintendent.  The  list  of 


98  S.  O.  S. 

these  various  offices  indicates  the  scope  and  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  all-important  wing  of  the  service  over 
which  Colonel  J.  A.  McCrea  presides. 

The  operation  of  his  Car  Record  Bureau  will  show 
how  we  have  revolutionised  transportation  methods 
in  France.  Up  to  the  time  of  our  advent  French  car 
control  was  a  sad  affair.  The  French  had  no  organ- 
ised or  consecutive  tracing  of  freight  equipment. 
Every  two  weeks  they  had  a  sort  of  checking  up,  but 
there  was  no  definite  plan.  Whole  trains  have  been 
lost  for  weeks.  Our  number  of  freight  cars  was 
necessarily  limited;  like  tonnage,  everybody  wanted 
all  the  cars  they  could  get;  we  had  to  keep  them 
in  constant  use,  and  this  required  in  turn  that  we  had 
to  know  where  they  were  all  the  time.  It  meant 
highly  centralised  control  to  prevent  duplication  of 
orders.  Here,  then,  is  the  system : 

Every  "U.S.A."  car  has  a  number  which  is  part  of 
a  series.  When  a  car  is  loaded  at  Base  port  or  Supply 
Depot  its  number  becomes  a  part  of  the  way-bill. 
Henceforth  that  number  is  under  constant  scrutiny. 
At  every  station  we  have  car  checkers  who  report 
the  location  of  empty  and  loaded  cars  each  day.  If 
a  car  is  unaccounted  for  twenty-four  hours  a  tracer 
is  at  once  started.  Every  morning  there  is  laid  on 
the  General  Manager's  desk  a  large  sheet  which  con- 
tains, by  stations,  a  report  of  cars  delayed  in  excess 
of  twenty-four  hours.  It  not  only  indicates  the  type 
of  car  and  its  freight,  if  loaded,  but  the  specific  cause 
of  the  delay.  Thus  congestion  can  be  relieved  at  once. 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC          99 

All  our  cars  are  marked:  "Return  When  Empty  to 
Port."  This  injunction  has  helped  a  great  deal. 

You  can  see  the  Master  Car  Situation  on  file  each 
day  in  Colonel  McCrea's  office,  which  tells  the  whole 
story  of  why,  out  of  2,700  American  cars  handled  in 
one  interval,  only  12  were  missing  on  the  whole 
Lines  of  Communication.  Technically  it  is  called 
"Report  of  Car  Situation,  Movement  and  Supply  for 
Twenty-four  Hour  Period  Ending  Twenty-four 
O'Clock."  It  is  a  complete  analysis  of  every  car, 
empty  and  loaded,  handled  at  every  station  on  our 
system  during  the  preceding  twenty- four  hours.  On 
it  you  can  see  such  items  as  the  analysis  of  freights ; 
the  physical  condition  of  the  rolling  stock  (which  is 
a  most  important  fact  to  know)  ;  the  loading  work 
done  by  the  various  departments;  indeed,  every  con- 
ceivable detail  that  contributes  to  the  upkeep  and 
operation  of  the  7,000  freight  cars  that  we  had  in 
France  at  the  time  I  write.  These  daily  records  are 
sent  in  each  day  by  telegraph.  In  the  United  States 
it  is  done  by  mail. 

In  addition  to  all  this  every  freight  train  is  checked 
up  and  its  record  put  on  a  card  which  contains  the 
number  of  the  train  and  the  number  of  each  car  in 
it ;  the  French  road  it  travels  on ;  the  consignee ;  point 
of  shipment;  destination;  and  contents.  On  the  card 
is  also  a  list  of  every  important  station  that  it  must 
pass.  The  train  is  checked  up  as  it  passes  each  sta- 
tion and  the  hour  of  the  passing  is  recorded.  When 
the  trip  is  finished  there  is  a  complete  biography  of 
the  journey.  This  card  is  kept  for  ninety  days  in 


ioo  S.  O.  S. 

order  to  check  up  any  questions  that  may  arise  in 
connection  with  the  trip.  After  ninety  days  it  is 
officially  "dead"  and  is  destroyed. 

In  the  movement  of  troop  trains  you  get  a  touch 
of  dramatic  interest.  Here,  and  up  to  the  zone  of 
fighting,  the  controlling  factor  is  our  old  friend  G4, 
which  is  advised  by  cable  by  the  Navy  Department 
of  the  impending  arrival  of  the  convoys.  G4  then, 
and  at  the  direction  of  G.H.Q.,  instructs  the  Troop 
Movement  Bureau  where  the  troops  are  to  be  shipped. 
They  may  go  into  a  billeting  area  or  to  barracks 
for  rest  and  intensive  training.  A  so-called  Landing 
Officer  accompanies  each  troop  train  from  port  to 
destination.  Only  a  Blotter  Record  is  kept  of  the 
movement  of  troop  trains,  for  no  permanent  records 
are  necessary. 

It  is  not  until  our  troops  strike  a  French  train — 
we  use  French  cars  for  this  transportation — that  they 
realise  the  hardships  of  war.  Our  soldiers  are  car- 
ried on  what  the  American  would  call  a  freight  box 
car,  labelled  in  France  "40  hommes  et  8  chevaux," 
which  means  "40  men  and  8  horses."  In  trying  to 
decipher  this  war-worn  phrase  many  an  American 
private  has  got  his  first  real  lesson  in  French.  After 
he  has  travelled  on  the  cars  he  begins  to  sympathise 
with  the  "8  chevaux." 

The  completeness  of  organisation  which  marks  the 
General  Manager's  activities  is  equally  true  in  the  do- 
main of  the  Business  Manager.  Colonel  Bunting  op- 
erates in  precisely  the  same  way  he  operated  in  his  of- 
fice in  the  Broad  Street  Station  in  Philadelphia.  He 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  f  &AFF1C        fdi 

has  to  deal  with  Purchases  and  Requisitions;  Con- 
tracts, Claims  and  Settlements;  Statistics  and  Ac- 
counts, and  a  Record  of  Material.  Colonel  Booz, 
whose  services  were  needed  at  home,  has  been  suc- 
ceeded as  Chief  Engineer  by  Lieutenant  Colonel  H. 
M.  Waite.  When  I  last  saw  him  he  was  City  Manager 
of  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  the  first  man  to  hold  such  a 
post  in  the  United  States.  He  had  previously  had 
a  varied  railway  engineering  experience.  It  was  one 
of  the  many  contrasts  that  I  have  encountered  in  this 
war  to  find  him  bulwarked  by  blue-prints  in  a  little 
office  in  the  Transportation  Office  at  Tours.  He  pre- 
pares the  plans  and  specifications  for  all  transporta- 
tion design  and  construction.  The  plans,  with  a  list 
of  material  needed,  are  turned  over  to  the  General 
Staff  for  approval  and  then  delivered  to  the  Director 
of  Construction  of  the  Services  of  Supply  for  exe- 
cution. The  material  is  ordered  through  the  Chief 
Engineer.  The  order  goes  to  Mr.  S.  M.  Felton,  who 
is  the  Director  General  of  Military  Railways  in  the 
United  States,  and  who,  with  his  technical  staff,  be- 
comes the  Purchasing  Agent  of  the  transportation 
system  abroad. 

1  The  whole  Transportation  Department  moves  like 
clock-work.  Every  service  has  a  staff  meeting  twice 
a  week  which  is  attended  by  the  Heads  of  Depart- 
ment. The  list  of  subjects  discussed  at  a  typical 
staff  meeting  of  the  Engineers'  Department  included 
the  following:  Coal  requirements;  Lumber  Dock  at 
Bordeaux ;  Organisation  to  have  charge  of  new  cranes ; 
General  repair  shop;  Regulating  stations;  Additional 


102  S.  O.  S. 

berths  at  Marseilles;  Maintenance  of  Way  material; 
Additional  tracks  at  Montoir  yards;  Car  movements; 
Plans  for  opening  port  at  Cette;  Facilities  required  at 
ports;  Tugs  from  the  United  States;  Development  of 
yards  at  St.  Sulpice;  Return  of  steel  rails  to  French. 
Everything  is  threshed  out ;  there  is  no  duplication.  It 
all  makes  for  team-work. 

Search  through  the  whole  Transportation  Depart- 
ment and  you  find  every  detail  that  goes  to  make  up 
a  well-operated  system.  The  "Safety  First"  rules  are 
typical.  They  grew  out  of  the  many  fatal  accidents 
to  our  soldiers  through  carelessness  on  trains.  One 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  American  soldiers  have 
been  killed  while  riding  on  the  tops  and  sides  of  rail- 
way cars.  Hence  you  find  all  cars  used  by  our  troops 
placarded  with  as  picturesque  a  set  of  warnings  as 
was  ever  handed  out  for  the  safeguarding  of  human 
beings. 

One  of  them  reads  like  this: 

"Your  head  may  be  hard,  but  not  as  hard  as  bridges 
and  tunnel  arches.  Only  six  inches  clearance  between 
tops  and  sides  of  cars  and  tunnel  arches  and  bridges. 
Don't  ride  on  tops  or  sides  of  cars.  The  railway 
company  will  hold  you  responsible  for  damages  to 
bridges  and  tunnels  and  signal  towers.  They  are  not 
insured.  Keep  your  block  inside" 

A  second  runs:  "There  are  three  kinds  of  fools: 
i.  Fools;  2.  Damned  Fools;  3.  Soldiers  who  ride  on 
tops  and  sides  of  cars.  If  you  expect  to  see  the  next 
block  keep  yours  inside." 

A  third  warning  says:    "Huns  are  waiting  in  the 


ARMY  TRACKS  AND  TRAFFIC        103 

trenches  ahead.  Speed  up.  You  won't  if  you  ride 
on  top  or  stick  your  head  outside  of  cars.  Keep  your 
ivory  in." 

Still  another  one  is:  "War  Risk  Insurance:  Keep 
inside;  don't  be  a  dead  one;  help  to  win  the  war." 

If  you  want  one  final  evidence  of  the  thoroughness 
of  our  transportation  system,  I  have  only  to  add  the 
story  of  the  so-called  "American  Special" — a  near  de 
luxe  passenger  train  that  runs  for  the  exclusive  use 
of  American  officers  every  night,  each  way,  between 
the  Fighting  Headquarters  and  the  Supply  Headquar- 
ters. Everything  on  it  is  American  except  the  coaches, 
and  they  happen  to  be  the  pick  of  the  best  first-class 
cars  in  France.  When  this  train  is  about  to  start 
the  passenger  hears:  "All  Aboard"  in  just  the  same 
vernacular,  dialect  and  all,  that  he  hears  at  the  Grand 
Central  Station  in  New  York,  the  Broad  Street  Sta- 
tion in  Philadelphia,  and  the  Old  South  Station  in 
Boston.  As  he  approaches  the  car  negro  porters,  in 
khaki  instead  of  the  familiar  blue  uniform  and  brass 
buttons,  separate  him  from  his  baggage  just  as  they 
do  in  the  States.  The  best  thing  about  it  is  that 
these  darkies  are  real  Pullman  porters.  Every  one 
of  them  has  had  his  share  of  railroading  back  home. 
He  is  a  never-ending  source  of  wonder  to  the  French 
porter,  who  marvels  at  the  dexterity  he  shows  in 
making  up  beds  for  the  night.  One  distinctive  differ- 
ence between  dealing  with  these  army  porters  and  the 
porters  in  America  is  that  the  black  boys  on  the 
"American  Special"  do  not  have  their  hands  out  for 
the  customary  tip  which  is  such  a  necessary  part  of 


104  S.  O.  S. 

American  travel.  Yet  their  service  is  just  as  cheerful 
and  just  as  good.  The  tipless  porter  therefore  is  one 
of  the  rare  exhibits  of  the  war! 

When  the  "American  Special"  idea  was  launched 
the  purveying  of  porters  became  a  problem.  Where 
were  they  to  come  from?  If  there  was  any  place, 
that  place  was  surely  the  Stevedore  regiments.  Dis- 
creet inquiries  were  at  once  made,  but  the  word  soon 
percolated  down  the  black  and  brown  ranks  tha,t 
men  who  had  had  experience  as  Pullman  porters  were 
wanted.  The  response  was  astounding.  Nearly  every 
stevedore  in  France  claimed  to  have  had  long  and 
varied  training  in  the  Pullman  service.  They  had 
visions  of  warm  cars  and  easy  work.  A  certain  top 
sergeant  was  known  to  have  been  a  porter  veteran, 
and  to  him  was  delegated  the  task  of  picking  out 
the  twenty  men  needed.  He  was  not  to  be  fooled. 
The  net  result  is  a  porter  service  that  is  one  hundred 
per  cent  good.  There  is  never  a  trip  but  that  these 
soldier-porters  recognise  some  one  from  whom  they 
have  collected  quarters,  half-dollars  and  even  dollars 
at  the  end  of  long  runs  in  America, 


IV — From  Ship  to  Shore 


ONE  all-essential  detail  in  the  structure  of 
Transportation  remains  to  be  explained.  It  is 
the  Army  Transport  Service,  commonly  called 
the  "A.T.S.,"  which  forms  the  link  between  ship  and 
train  or  barge.  Ask  the  average  American  soldier  in 
France  what  the  A.T.S.  does  and  he  will  say:  "They 
unload  the  ships."  Yet  no  unit  over  there  performs 
a  task  more  significant  or  effective  than  this  sleep- 
less, tireless,  eternally  vigilant  organisation  which  de- 
livers man,  beast  and  material  to  the  steam  and  wa- 
ter carriers.  It  operates  in  every  port  that  we  use; 
on  its  work  depends  the  flow  of  that  vital  American 
war  factor,  tonnage.  Though  it  employs  thousands 
of  men  and  ranges  in  its  activities  from  the  Welsh 
Coast  down  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  it 
is  so  efficiently  co-ordinated  that  a  man  can  sit  at  a 
desk  at  Tours  and  know  every  hour  of  the  day  and 
night  just  what  is  being  done.  Once  more  you  have 
the  spectacle  of  an  almost  uncanny  centralised  control. 
The  man  at  that  desk,  white  of  hair,  and  with  a 
soft  Southern  drawl,  is  Lieutenant  Colonel  H.  B. 
Moore,  head  of  the  A.T.S.  His  job  really  began  back 
in  May,  1917,  when  he  was  summoned  from  his  steam- 
ship office  down  at  Galveston  to  organise  the  transport 
unloading  of  the  first  Expeditionary  Force.  He  has 

105 


io6  S.  O.  S. 

been  on  the  job  ever  since.  He  has  seen  that  infant 
organisation  of  four  hundred  negro  stevedores  and 
twenty  foremen,  known  as  the  Transport  Battalion, 
expand  into  the  army  of  labourers  that  he  now  com- 
mands. This  work  was  originally  part  of  the  Quarter- 
master Corps,  but  was  transferred  to  its  logical  do- 
main, which  is  Transportation. 

When  our  supplies  began  to  pile  into  France  the 
word  went  forth  from  Headquarters:  "Keep  the 
docks  clear."  Congested  docks  not  only  meant  an 
interrupted  flow  of  supplies  all  the  way  up  to  the 
front,  but  what  was  equally  important,  delay  in  the 
"turn  around' '  of  ships,  and  Ships  in  this  war  are 
Life.  Hence  the  job  of  the  A.T.S.  is  to  unload  ships 
as  swiftly  as  possible  and  keep  the  docks  ever  ready 
to  take  on  the  unending  stream  of  stuff  that  flows 
from  America  into  France.  How  is  it  done? 

As  soon  as  a  ship  sails  from  the  United  States 
the  Navy  Department  notifies  the  A.T.S.  When  that 
ship  is  in  Mid-Atlantic  it  sends  a  further  advice  stating 
the  draught  and  size  of  the  vessel  and  the  cargo 
in  detail.  If  it  is  a  transport  it  sends  the  number 
of  troops  and  their  classification.  This  information 
now  forms  the  basis  of  operations.  The  A.T.S.  must 
adapt  the  ship  to  one  of  the  fourteen  destinations 
that  we  have  in  Europe.  This  assignment  is  gov- 
erned in  turn  by  the  rail  transport  out  of  the  port; 
whether  that  port  is  congested  or  free ;  by  the  draught 
and  size  of  the  ship;  the  class  of  cargo  (if  it  is  ex- 
plosive it  must  go  to  an  isolated  place) ;  and  also  the 
special  type  of  cargo.  If  the  ship  is  carrying  loco- 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  107 

motives  it  must  go  to  a  port  which  has  monster  cranes. 
In  the  case  of  a  troopship,  the  final  destination  of  the 
soldiers  often  helps  to  determine  the  port.  Thus, 
before  the  ship  reaches  France,  the  A.T.S.  has  as- 
signed it  to  a  port  best  equipped  to  handle  its  freight. 
By  the  time  it  is  berthed  the  exact  number  of  steve- 
dores, machinery,  and  trucks  are  ready  to  empty  its 
deck  and  burrow  into  its  hold.  Now  you  see  why 
there  is  no  delay  and  why  we  have  been  able  to  handle 
50,000  tons  a  day. 

An  adequate  Intelligence  System  is  a  vital  factor. 
Between  12  and  2  o'clock  every  day  Colonel  Moore 
gets  a  long-distance  telephone  call  from  the  A.T.S. 
Superintendent  at  every  one  of  the  eleven  ports  we 
used  in  France,  and  they  range  from  Belgium  to  Italy. 
This  report  is  a  compact  summary  of  weather  and 
dock  conditions.  Weather  is  of  course  an  all-import- 
ant matter.  If  there  are  any  usual  events  like  acci- 
dents or  wrecks  they  are  all  reported.  Hence  the 
Chief  of  the  Army  Transport  Service  is  not  only  in 
constant  touch  with  the  situation,  but  he  can  con- 
stantly inform  the  whole  A.  E.  F.  about  many  things 
they  want  to  know.  If  the  Air  Service,  for  example, 
calls  up  and  asks:  "When  can  we  have  some  aero- 
planes?" all  that  the  officer  at  A.  T.  S.  Headquarters 
has  to  do  is  to  look  up  a  sheet  recording  advices  of 
incoming  ships  and  he  can  at  once  say:  "Sierra  will 
arrive  at  Bordeaux  to-morrow  morning  with  a  thou- 
sand tons  of  aeroplanes  set  up." 

If  you  want  to  know  just  how  the  A.  T.  S.  works, 
come  with  me  on  a  little  trip  to  Base  Section  Number 


io8  S.  O.  S. 

One.  Here  you  will  find  the  Superintendent  of  the 
A.T.S.  installed  in  an  office  at  the  dock,  where  he 
can  see  the  ships  that  he  must  work,  hear  the  creak 
of  crane  and  the  rattle  of  truck.  In  this  particular 
case  the  Superintendent  is  Lieutenant  Colonel  F.  W. 
Green,  short,  stocky,  alert,  and  a  dynamo  of  energy. 
He  left  the  General  Managership  of  the  Louisiana  and 
Arkansas  Railway  to  do  his  share  in  France.  He  runs 
that  port  just  as  easily  as  he  once  operated  1,300 
miles  of  railway  back  home.  In  his  pocket  is  a  loose- 
leaf  memorandum  book  on  which  is  typed  the  name, 
length,  draught,  the  heaviest  package  aboard  and  the 
itemised  cargo  of  every  ship  that  he  must  unload. 
He  has  gotten  these  facts  by  wire  from  the  Director 
of  the  A.T.S.  Part  of  his  task,  therefore,  is  to 
arrange  for  a  suitable  berth  for  the  ship.  He  must 
have  a  crane  or  derrick  for  that  heaviest  package 
if  it  is  an  engine  or  a  steel  girder. 

On  a  large  black-board  before  him  is  a  diagram 
of  the  lock  basins.  Each  berth  has  a  number.  Along- 
side each  number  is  written  in  chalk  the  name  of 
the  ship  unloading  there.  Thus  he  can  see  at  a 
glance  just  what  is  going  on  in  his  bailiwick.  As 
soon  as  the  ship  is  unloaded  its  name  is  wiped  out 
and  another  is  written  in. 

In  addition  there  is  a  black-board  in  the  office  of 
the  Assistant  Superintendent,  which  is  a  sort  of  work- 
ing register.  This  deals  with  the  concrete  details  of 
unloading.  It  contains  the  number  of  the  berth,  the 
name  of  the  ship  alongside,  the  unloading  officer  in 
charge,  the  number  of  hatches  working,  the  number 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  109 

of  labour  gangs  on  these  hatches — in  short,  the  whole 
daily  programme. 

The  labour  battalions,  that  is,  the  stevedores,  are 
divided  into  gangs.  There  is  one  for  each  hatch,  with 
a  sergeant  in  charge  on  deck,  while  a  corporal  looks 
after  the  men  working  in  the  hold.  There  are  three 
labour  shifts  of  eight  hours  each.  To  quote  Colonel 
Green:  "We  work  twenty-six  hours  a  day,  that  is, 
twenty-four  for  unloading  and  two  for  cleaning  up !" 
These,  I  might  say,  are  the  regulation  army  hours. 

A  constant  scrutiny  is  kept  on  these  labourers.  For 
every  seven  ships  being  unloaded  there  is  a  Chief 
Travelling  Stevedore,  who  is  a  sort  of  official  black 
speeder-up  of  his  fellow  workers.  He  goes  from  ship 
to  ship.  In  order  to  stimulate  the  stevedores,  they 
are  given  special  leave  after  they  have  made  a  par- 
ticularly good  record.  Theft,  breakage  of  packages 
due  to  carelessness  and  "soldiering"  are  punished 
with  the  rock  pile  or  worse.  A  friendly  rivalry  is 
developed  between  these  labour  gangs  which  makes 
for  good  results.  This  is  one  reason  why  this  par- 
ticular port  unloaded  10,341  tons  in  one  day. 

Watch  the  unloading  of  a  group  of  American  ships 
in  a  French  port  and  you  behold  a  sight  that  at  first 
seems  to  be  one  of  utter  confusion,  so  deafening  is  the 
din  and  so  incessant  the  movement.  There  is  a  con- 
stant procession  of  labourers  from  hold  to  dock; 
motor  trucks,  boxes,  machinery  and  raw  material  ap- 
pear to  pile  up  from  nowhere.  Yet  it  is  orderly  chaos. 
Every  case  of  canned  goods  that  comes  ashore  is 
checked  up  and  becomes  part  of  the  daily  record.  Not 


no  S.  O.  S. 

a  pound  strays  or  gets  lost  in  the  tumultuous  shuffle. 
There  is  a  checker  on  the  boat  and  one  ashore.  Fre- 
quently, and  notably  in  the  case  of  ration  components, 
the  goods  go  direct  from  ship  to  freight  car  which 
stands  on  a  siding  at  the  dock.  This  saves  rehandling 
in  the  warehouse.  This  process,  technically  called  Dis- 
position, means  that  the  cargo  goes  direct  to  consumer, 
which  is  the  army,  without  storage.  Where  there  is 
an  exceptionally  large  consignment  for  one  Service  a 
representative  of  that  Service  is  at  the  dock  to  see 
that  it  is  sent  at  once  to  its  proper  destination.  This 
is  especially  true  of  motor  transportation  and  Quar- 
termaster stores.  Motor  trucks  and  cars  are  made 
up  in  trains  and  sent  at  once  to  the  Reception  Parks 
which  are  always  near  the  quays.  The  whole  rule 
of  supply  in  France  is  to  get  the  stuff  from  where  it 
is  plentiful  to  where  it  is  needed  and  with  the  min- 
imum amount  of  labour. 

All  this  many-sided  and  unending  dock  effort  is  put 
down  on  paper.  On  what  is  known  as  the  Daily 
Report  of  Dock  and  Shed  Operations  you  can  see  the 
location  of  the  work,  the  tonnage  unloaded  from  the 
boat,  whether  it  went  direct  to  cars  or  to  trucks  and 
barges,  or  was  left  on  the  dock;  the  total  tonnage 
handled  in  terms  of  troops,  animals  and  materials;  the 
number  of  man  hours  used  up  in  handling  the  freight 
and  the  average  tonnage  per  man  per  hour.  Likewise, 
and  in  a  no  less  comprehensive  document  entitled  Daily 
Report  of  Boat  Operations,  you  can  read  every  night 
the  complete  record  of  what  was  done  with  every 
boat  on  which  labour  was  employed.  You  get  first 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  in 

of  all  the  name  of  the  boat;  the  port  from  which  it 
sailed,  the  time  of  its  arrival  outside  and  the  time  of 
its  docking,  its  draught,  number  of  cargo  hatches,  the 
exact  cargo  aboard  both  in  specific  items  and  tonnage^ 
and  the  whole  unloading  record.  In  addition  you  get 
its  complete  Outward  Movement,  the  ballast  employed 
and  whether  it  took  back  to  America  any  troops  or 
passengers.  Even  the  state  of  weather  during  the 
ship's  stay  in  France  is  part  of  this  remarkable 
chronicle.  When  you  have  finished  reading  one  of 
these  reports  you  know  the  complete  history  of  that 
ship  and  its  cargo  from  the  time  it  left  the  port 
"Somewhere  in  America"  until  it  sailed  back  from 
"Somewhere  in  France." 

But  this  is  not  all.  That  great  mass  of  freight 
must  be  transferred  to  car  and  barge.  Hence  there 
is  a  Daily  Report  of  Car  and  Barge  Movement,  which 
specifies  the  exact  number  of  freight  cars  or  barges 
loaded  and  the  specific  freight  together  with  the  desti- 
nation. The  work  of  the  A.T.S.  so  far  as  the  actual 
tonnage  is  concerned  ends  when  men  and  material  go 
speeding  inland-ward.  Once  outside  the  Port  Area 
the  railway  or  canal  service  authority  begins. 

Apropos  of  this  canal  service  let  me  say  that  here 
is  a  branch  of  Transportation  that  grows  steadily  in 
importance  and  usefulness.  On  its  four  hundred  miles 
of  water-ways  we  have  more  than  600  men  afloat 
in  charge  of  tow-boat  captains  who  have  come  from 
American  canals  that  range  from  the  Erie  to  the  Pan- 
ama project.  Evidence  of  the  approaching  magnitude 
of  the  Service  is  the  fact  that  fifty  concrete  oil-burning 


ii2  S.  O.  S. 

tow-boats  are  under  construction  for  the  A.T.S.  in 
France.  Fifteen  ocean-going  tugs  crossed  the  Atlantic 
to  join  its  fleet. 

Buried  in  the  formal  records  of  the  Army  Trans- 
port Service  are  many  dramas  in  achievement — ro- 
mances of  heroic  effort  that  are  as  kindling  as  any 
narrative  of  fighting  at  the  front.  They  are  shot 
through  with  the  thrill  of  combat  with  wind  and  rain 
and  circumstance.  Let  me  disclose  two  of  them  that 
will  make  every  American  feel  just  a  little  prouder  of 
his  national  kinship  with  the  men,  white  and  black, 
who  made  them  possible. 

One  day  a  great  fleet  of  troop  transports — in  reality 
two  convoys — carrying  over  forty  thousand  men  ap- 
peared outside  Brest.  The  port  had  a  normal  de- 
barking capacity,  with  camp  accommodation  ashore, 
of  thirty  thousand  men  a  month.  It  was  in  the  early 
days.  There  were  no  docks;  the  soldiers  had  to  be 
lightered.  "Can  you  unload  these  men  in  ten  days?" 
was  the  proposition  put  up  to  the  Superintendent  of 
the  A.T.S.  In  exactly  forty-eight  hours  afterwards 
every  man  was  walking  the  soil  of  France.  Colonel 
Green,  the  live  wire  now  in  charge  at  Base  Section 
Number  One,  is  the  man  who  turned  the  trick.  He 
did  it — for  one  thing — by  making  a  bridge  of  a  flo- 
tilla of  French  ships  in  the  harbour.  He  even  com- 
mandeered tugs,  barges,  anything  afloat  that  would 
carry  a  human  being.  That  enormous  convoy  did  not 
find  camps  and  kitchens  ready  for  them  when  they 
set  foot  in  France,  but  they  got  off  their  ships  in  less 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  113 

than  one-fifth  the  time  that  they  expected  to  land  and 
they  were  ready  to  go  up  the  line. 

Here  is  its  twin  performance.  One  of  our  ship 
problems  has  been  the  coaling  of  the  monster  Levia- 
than,  once  the  Hamburg-American  liner,  the  Vater- 
land,  which  must  take  aboard  4,500  tons  of  coal  and 
2,000  tons  of  water  every  time  she  touches  port.  On 
two  occasions  she  was  hung  up  for  forty  and  sixty 
days.  This  was  a  waste  of  precious  troop  carrying 
power.  She  was  sent  to  Brest  and  the  instruction  to 
the  A.T.S.  was:  "The  Leviathan  must  be  turned 
around  in  two  weeks." 

Once  more  Colonel  Green  met  the  emergency,  for 
in  eighty-four  hours  after  that  reformed  German  ship 
poked  her  nose  into  port  she  was  on  her  way  out  again 
fully  fuelled  and  watered.  In  this  case  Yankee  re- 
sourcefulness, spurred  on  by  an  indomitable  energy, 
worked  the  miracle.  Colonel  Green,  who  had  ample 
advance  notice  of  the  coming  of  the  great  vessel, 
swung  specially  made  platforms  all  around  her  sides. 
This  enabled  him  to  work  a  much  larger  force  of  la- 
bour than  the  ordinary  coaling  facilities  permitted. 
Then,  with  a  keen  sense  of  labour  psychology,  he 
started  a  rivalry  between  the  Army  and  Navy  gangs 
as  to  which  could  get  the  most  coal  aboard.  Pitted 
against  each  other  they  performed  prodigies.  The 
best  commentary  that  I  can  make  on  this  astounding 
triumph  of  American  methods  is  to  say  that  this  rec- 
ord beat  the  best  record  in  Germany  by  exactly  forty- 
eight  hours.  In  other  words,  it  took  a  hundred  and 
thirty-two  hours  to  coal  the  Vaterland  in  her  home 


H4  S.  O.  S. 

port  under  ideal  conditions.  Such  achievements  as 
these,  and  they  are  merely  typical,  are  simply  part  of 
the  day's  work  of  the  Army  Transport  Service. 

This  World  of  Tracks  and  Traffic  which  pulses 
with  movement  must  be  linked  with  swift  communi- 
cations. At  this  point  we  touch  the  Signal  Corps 
which  has  a  leading  part  in  the  whole  vast  scheme  of 
our  effort  in  France.  Its  telephone  and  telegraph 
lines  not  only  bind  up  the  Services  of  Supply  but  reach 
to  the  observation  posts  that  look  out  on  "No  Man's 
Land."  There  is  seldom  a  list  of  awards  of  the 
American  Distinguished  Service  Cross  without  a  cita- 
tion of  some  signaller  who  crept  out  under  fire  to 
repair  a  wire  or  who  kept  his  telephone  working  un- 
der a  hell  of  shells. 

With  the  Signal  Corps  you  are  face  to  face  with 
what  amounts  to  a  large  cross  section  of  the  American 
Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  planted  overseas. 
You  see  telegraph  rooms  that  rattle  like  machine  guns 
and  with  multiplex  systems  that  send  eight  telegrams 
at  one  time  over  the  same  wire;  you  find  yourself  in 
complete  telephone  exchanges  operated  by  nimble- 
witted  American  girls.  Over  the  five-hundred  mile 
length  of  our  service  we  send  what  amounts  to  90,- 
ooo  ordinary  telegraph  messages  a  day,  which  is  equal 
to  the  commercial  telegraph  business  done  daily  in  a 
city  the  size  of  Philadelphia.  In  one  place — Tours — 
we  duplicate  the  business  that  Baltimore  does  every 
twenty-four  hours.  We  register  more  than  1,800 
long  distance  telephone  calls  a  day  or  as  many  as 
are  put  in  each  day  between  New  York  and  Boston. 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  115 

In  addition  there  are  400  long  distance  calls  a  day  on 
our  leased  wires.  To  do  all  this  we  use  18,000  miles 
of  American  strung  wire.  We  also  lease  36,000  miles 
of  French  wire,  which  makes  a  total  of  54,000  miles 
of  wire  owned  or  controlled  by  the  American  Expe- 
ditionary Force. 

At  the  head  of  this  net-work  of  nerves  is  a  smooth- 
faced, grey-haired  man,  Brigadier  General  Edgar  Rus- 
sel,  who  was  in  at  the  birth  of  the  system  in  France. 
As  in  every  other  activity,  Signals  faced  many  ob- 
stacles. The  European  apparatus  does  not  fully  meet 
the  needs  of  the  American  Engineers.  The  French 
telephone,  as  every  traveller  knows,  is  one  of  the  pen- 
ances of  modern  times.  Try  to  get  a  call  in  Paris — 
it  is  much  worse  in  the  provinces — and  you  atone 
for  all  your  sins.  We  had  to  bring  over  everything 
we  used  but  the  poles  and  we  had  trouble  in  getting 
them. 

The  American  Telegraph  Battalions  who  vie  with 
the  Transportation  Corps  in  versatility  and  sacrifice, 
have  become  a  familiar  sight  in  rural  France  as  they 
sit  astride  poles  or  dash  up  and  down  the  roads  in 
their  emergency  wagons.  We  have  a  complete  sys- 
tem of  pole  patrol  because  these  wires  must  be  up 
and  doing  all  the  time.  Every  American  pole  is  num- 
bered and  branded  "U.  S.  A."  It  gives  you  a  friendly 
feeling  to  see  the  unending  procession  of  them  as  you 
motor  along  the  highways. 

The  really  fascinating  detail,  however  (this  ad- 
jective is  not  without  its  literal  meaning),  of  the  Sig- 
nal Corps  is  the  human  side.  I  mean  of  course  that 


ii6  S.  O.  S. 

gallant  band  of  nearly  two  hundred  American  women 
who  operate  the  switchboards  and  who  have  displayed 
a  courage  that  has  had  more  than  one  actual  test.  One 
night  when  Paris  was  under  a  rain  of  air  bombs  and 
when  men  rushed  to  safety,  the  American  telephone 
girls  on  duty  were  asked  to  leave  their  posts  and  seek 
the  "dbri"  which  is  the  official  "shelter."  Just  then 
a  window  in  the  room  was  smashed  by  a  shell  frag- 
ment, yet  those  hello  heroines  remained  at  the  switch- 
board. "We  will  stay  until  the  last  man  leaves,"  they 
said.  This  is  the  fibre  of  the  enlisted  sisters  of  our 
fighting  men. 

They  are  a  hand-picked  crowd  with  as  fine  a  sense 
of  service  as  ever  animated  combat  troops.  For  the 
original  contingent  the  two  main  qualifications  were 
a  knowledge  of  French  and  telephone  operation.  That 
was  when  we  had  to  use  French  wires.  With  our  com- 
plete all- American  system  now  the  French  requirement 
is  incidental.  Those  pioneer  operators  had  to  be  trained 
in  the  United  States.  The  majority  of  them  were  col- 
lege girls,  keen  of  mind  and  with  an  immense  capacity 
for  work.  Go  to  any  one  of  our  switchboards  in 
France  and  you  can  see  a  Wellesley  graduate  seated 
alongside  a  girl  who  has  had  to  make  her  way  from 
childhood.  In  this  service,  like  the  "Colonel's  lady 
and  Judy  O'Grady,"  they  are  all  patriots  "under  the 
skin." 

The  telephone  operators  wear  a  smart  blue  uniform 
with  a  blue  aviator  cap.  On  the  left  sleeve  is  a  white 
brassard  indicating  position.  The  operator's  badge 
bears  a  telephone  transmitter;  the  supervisor's,  a  trans- 


FROM  SHIP  TO  SHORE  117 

mitter  in  a  wreath;  the  Chief  Operator  at  a  station, 
a  gilt  transmitter  in  a  wreath  surmounted  by  a  static. 
All  our  women  rank  as  civilian  employes  of  the 
A.E.F.  For  safety  and  comfort  there  are  never 
less  than  five  girls  in  any  one  place.  They  are  always 
in  charge  of  a  Supervisor  and  usually  live  in  a  Y.  W. 
C  A.  hotel. 

But  telephone  and  telegraph  is  just  one  detail  in  the 
larger  work  of  the  Signal  Corps.  Although  Aviation 
— once  a  part  of  it — has  been  made  a  separate  service 
it  has  many  other  vital  functions.  Modern  war  has 
proved  the  value  of  the  Radio.  Hence  wireless  is  an 
all-important  function.  It  is  part  of  the  duty  of  the 
Signal  Corps  to  intercept  both  enemy  and  neutral 
wireless  messages.  Some  of  the  latter  are  as  dan- 
gerous to  our  cause  as  those  of  the  Central  Powers. 
We  have  regular  Intercept  Stations  for  this  work. 
Then,  too,  the  Signal  Corps  operates  the  whole  Car- 
rier Pigeon  Service.  These  little  white  birds  have 
saved  the  day  on  more  than  one  occasion.  Likewise 
the  Signal  Corps  operates  a  complete  Weather  Serv- 
ice. Air  fighting  depends  upon  weather  conditions. 
It  is  the  duty  of  these  prophets  to  make  daily  fore- 
casts of  meteorological  conditions  upon  which  so  much 
depends.  Scientific  inspection  of  all  apparatus  is  an- 
other work.  If  a  telephone  transmitter  is  packed,  for 
example,  the  service  is  impaired  and  this  deficiency 
may  spell  defeat.  All  official  photographs  of  the 
A.E.F.  are  taken  by  the  Signal  Corps  and  they  are 
no  inconsiderable  aid  to  army  operations.  Since  the 
modern  army  invents  as  well  as  fights  it  follows  that 


ii8  S.  O.  S. 

we  have  a  completely  equipped  Research  Service  in- 
stalled in  a  laboratory  in  Paris,  where  already  our 
scientific  experts  under  the  stress  of  emergency  have 
improved  telephony  and  telegraphy.  Such  is  the  as- 
tonishing function  of  a  little-known  but  all-essential 
branch  of  the  Services  of  Supply. 

Like  Transportation,  the  Signals  Corps  has  drawn 
the  Stars  of  Communication  to  its  ranks.  In  the  tele- 
phone exchange  at  Tours  one  day  I  saw  a  slight  grey- 
haired  man  in  khaki  and  who  wore  the  silver  eagle  of 
a  full  Colonel  on  his  shoulders.  When  I  met  him  a 
little  later  I  found  that  he  was  Colonel  John  J.  Carty, 
the  greatest  of  all  living  telephone  engineers  and  the 
man  who,  almost  more  than  any  other,  made  it  pos- 
sible for  New  York  to  speak  to  San  Francisco.  He 
is  on  the  job  in  France,  which  means  that  our  tele- 
phone service  is  as  scientifically  supervised  as  that 
of  Chicago  or  St.  Louis. 

Thus  Rails,  Sails  and  Wires  combine  in  the  crea- 
tion of  an  Aid  to  War  that  represents  the  last  word 
in  efficiency  and  service.  The  mark  of  America  is  all 
over  it. 


V — Feeding  the  Doughboys 


IN  an  office  on  the  second  floor  of  the  historic  bar- 
racks building  at  Tours  which  houses  the  Head- 
quarters of  the  Services  of  Supply  of  the  Amer- 
ican Expeditionary  Force  sits  a  broad-shoudered, 
rangy  man  with  keen  brown  eyes,  firm  jaw,  and  every 
external  evidence  of  a  distinct  and  dominating  per- 
sonality. From  his  desk  which  faces  the  crossed  flags 
of  the  Quartermaster  Corps  that  hang  over  the  door, 
radiates  the  authority  that  means  victory  or  defeat  for 
our  overseas  troops.  Without  him  there  can  be  no 
flaming  offensive.  With  him  all  progress  is  possible. 
He  is  Major  General  Harry  L.  Rogers,  Quarter- 
master General  to  the  whole  American  army  and  Chief 
Quartermaster  of  the  Pershing  host.  Through  him 
your  son,  brother,  husband  or  sweetheart,  whether 
he  is  in  Base  port  or  at  the  battle  front,  never  misses 
a  meal,  and  is  always  shod  and  clothed. 

The  moment  you  reach  the  Quartermaster  Corps 
you  invade  the  Master  Domain  of  the  Business  of 
War.  Guns  can  wait  but  hunger  cannot.  Upon  it 
depends  the  vital  energy  of  the  combat  force  for  the 
well-fed  man  can  always  fight.  An  army  is  only  as 
efficient  and  as  effective  as  its  subsistence  system,  and 
it  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  when  men  hurled  spears 
and  shot  arrows. 

no 


120  S.  O.  S. 

No  corresponding  officer  in  any  of  the  Allied  armies 
has  so  ramified  a  task  as  General  Rogers.  Steward- 
ship of  the  soldier's  stomach  is  only  one  of  his  obliga- 
tions. You  get  some  idea  of  the  scope  of  his  labours 
when  I  tell  you  that  the  blue-print  chart  of  his  organ- 
isation in  France  alone  is  eight  feet  long  and  has 
more  than  a  hundred  Sections,  each  one  indicating  a 
separate  activity.  Under  his  control  everywhere  is 
an  army  greater  than  the  entire  regular  establishment 
of  the  United  States  when  we  went  to  war  with 
Germany.  He  is  the  keeper  of  more  than  three  square 
miles  of  warehouses  in  France  from  which  flow  un- 
ceasing streams  of  sustenance.  At  his  direction  the 
largest  ice  making  plant  under  one  roof  in  the  world 
has  been  built.  He  operates  farms  and  factories  while 
his  salvage  ranges  from  the  repair  of  a  shoe  to  the 
restoration  of  a  sawmill.  In  fuelling  the  fighting  fur- 
nace he  has  expanded  industry  and  redeemed  com- 
munities at  home  and  abroad.  The  figures  with  which 
he  deals  are  so  staggering  that  they  need  to  be  splashed 
on  a  ten-league  canvas  with  those  proverbial  brushes 
of  comet's  hair. 

His  principality  is  geared  up  to  the  whole  Universe 
of  Output.  The  Old  World  and  the  New  alike  lubri- 
cate the  endless  chain  of  army  supply  that  must  never 
break  a  link.  In  every  subsequent  chapter  of  this  book 
you  will  encounter  some  contact  or  dependence  upon 
his  far-flung  functions.  Chief  among  his  responsi- 
bilities, however,  is  Subsistence.  It  is  with  the  re- 
sponse that  he  makes  to  the  most  incessant  of  all  de- 
mands— the  human  appetite — that  this  narrative  is 


MAJOR  GENERAL  HARRY  L.  ROGERS 
Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  S.  O.  S.,  A.  E.  F. 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  121 

mainly  concerned.  Again  you  have  the  revelation  of 
a  monster  merchandising,  driven  by  a  titanic  energy, 
harnessed  to  needs  and  wants  that  never  cease.  Once 
more  you  find  the  emergency  met. 

The  Quartermaster  Corps,  which  is  the  prototype 
of  the  Army  Service  Corps  in  the  British  Army,  was 
in  at  the  birth  of  the  A.E.F.  Like  mothers'  milk 
it  begins  with  life  for  it  is  the  means  preservative  of 
army  existence.  Originally  the  present  organisation 
was  operated  by  three  separate  bodies:  the  Pay  De- 
partment which  paid  the  troops;  the  Commissary 
which  dealt  with  food;  and  the  Quartermaster  who 
provided  clothing  and  tentage.  Long  before  we  went 
to  grips  with  the  Kaiser,  however,  they  were  unified 
under  one  head — a  Quartermaster  General,  and  in  one 
body  which  was  called  the  Quartermaster  Corps. 
Hence  the  Quartermaster  General  of  the  army — the 
"Q.M.G." — is  like  the  head  of  a  corporation  com- 
posed of  many  merged  subsidiaries. 

When  General  Pershing  sailed  for  France  in  June, 
1917,  he  took  with  him  Colonel  Daniel  E.  McCarthy, 
who  was  the  First  Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  A.E.F. 
With  him  went  five  assistants  and  also  ten  other 
Quartermaster  Officers  with  a  group  of  enlisted  sol- 
diers and  clerks.  This  handful  of  subordinate  officers 
and  men,  many  of  them  now  risen  high  in  the  Service, 
formed  the  nucleus  of  the  tens  of  thousands  who  suc- 
cour and  sustain  the  Expedition  to-day. 

Like  every  other  Service,  the  "Q.M.C.,"  as  the 
Quartermaster  Corps  is  termed,  had  humble  begin- 
ning. Its  first  offices  were  two  rooms,  twenty  by 


122  S.   O.    S. 

twenty  feet  square,  in  that  historic  building  in  the  Rue 
Constantine  in  Paris  where  our  whole  overseas  effort 
first  saw  the  light  of  day.  The  tiny  quarters  were 
flooded  at  the  start  with  every  conceivable  kind  of 
commercial  offering  that  ranged  from  hand  grenades 
and  tennis  rackets  to  whole  bakeries  and  founderies. 
There  was  a  constant  influx  of  inventors,  spies,  sales- 
men, advisers,  business  "experts"  and  stranded  Amer- 
icans all  dripping  with  suggestions  and  ideas  and 
eager  to  get  their  fingers  into  Uncle  Sam's  purse. 
This  itch  for  easy  Government  money,  I  might  add, 
still  exists.  It  knows  neither  rank  nor  caste. 

In  those  early  and  precarious  days  General  Persh- 
ing  realised  that  the  great  bulk  of  his  supplies  would 
have  to  be  brought  from  America.  Thus  our  whole 
vast  tonnage  problem  really  began  with  food  and  it 
has  remained  the  first  and  foremost  consideration  of 
shipping  ever  since. 

In  July,  1917,  and  in  one  of  the  first  orders  issued 
by  the  A.E.F.  the  duties  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster 
were  published  as:  Transportation  of  Personnel  and 
Supplies;  Supply  Transportation  and  Repairs;  Cloth- 
ing; Quartermaster  Equipment;  Subsistence;  Fuel; 
Forage;  Lights;  Quarters;  Camp  Sites;  Quarters  and 
Offices;  Pay  of  Personnel  and  General  Disbursements; 
Laundries  and  Baths;  Remounts;  Claims;  Salvage; 
Workshops  and  Storehouses;  Cemeteries;  Burials; 
Graves  Registration ;  Labour  and  Quartermaster  Per- 
sonnel. With  the  exception  of  Claims  and  Transpor- 
tation these  duties  remain  practically  the  same  to-day. 

Part  of  Colonel  McCarthy's  force  arranged   for 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  123 

the  camp  and  subsistence  of  the  first  Expeditionary 
Force  which  arrived  in  St.  Nazaire  on  June  26th, 
1917.  This  force  of  10,000  men  brought  its  Quar- 
termaster complement  but  it  had  to  do  some  pretty 
lively  skirmishing  and  lean  on  the  French  and  British 
until  the  Overseas  Supply  Service  had  been  established. 
Meanwhile  an  event  of  far-reaching  importance  to 
our  Supply  Service  happened.  Down  at  San  Antonio, 
Texas,  and  working  as  Department  Quartermaster  of 
the  Southern  Department  was  the  then  Colonel  Harry 
L.  Rogers,  once  called  "The  Boy  Paymaster."  His 
father  conducted  a  famous  military  school  in  Mich- 
igan from  which  he  had  graduated  and  gone  straight 
into  the  regular  army.  He  had  solved  the  biggest 
army  supply  problem  since  the  Civil  War  because 
he  successfully  fed  and  equipped  the  army  of  250,000 
regulars  and  National  Guardsmen  that  we  mobilised 
on  the  Mexican  border.  It  was  Rogers  who  kept  the 
supply  trains  and  trucks  filled  and  moving  in  the  trail 
of  Pershing  when  he  went  after  Villa  and  his  fellow 
bandits.  He  little  dreamed  as  he  sweated  over  the 
hard-tack  and  canned  beans  that  he  sent  day  after 
day  out  across  the  dusty  sagebrush  and  the  scorching 
mesa  that  he  would  soon  be  feeding  that  same  Com- 
mander at  the  head  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Americans  overseas.  Destiny  was  working  in  his 
direction.  On  June  26th  the  army  telegraph  instru- 
ment ticked  out  an  order  to  him  to  come  to  France. 
In  two  weeks  he  was  on  the  ocean;  on  August  I3th 
he  was  made  Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  A.E.F. 


124  S.  O.  S. 

Subsequently  he  became  Quartermaster  General  to  all 
our  forces.  Colonel  McCarthy  had  to  return  home 
because  of  illness. 

It  was  Brigadier  General  Rogers  (his  great  work 
on  the  border  had  won  him  promotion)  who  faced  the 
task  of  organising  the  Quartermaster's  work  in 
France.  To  write  of  those  early  times  is  to  begin  the 
usual  catalogue  of  difficulties  and  handicaps.  There 
was  shortage  of  personnel,  tonnage  and  motor  trans- 
port. Besides,  no  one  knew  just  how  large  our  over- 
seas force  would  be.  It  is  interesting  to  reflect  that 
at  the  outset  our  coal  needs,  for  example,  were  con- 
sidered at  15,000  tons  a  month.  To-day  we  use 
nearly  ten  times  that  much. 

Responsibilities  literally  buzzed  around  the  head 
of  the  new  Chief  Quartermaster.  With  uncanny  fore- 
sight he  anticipated  many  emergencies.  For  one  thing 
he  saw  that  he  would  have  to  purchase  as  many  sup- 
plies as  possible  abroad  in  order  to  save  tonnage. 
Out  of  this  vision  grew  the  invaluable  General 
Purchasing  Board  of  which  you  will  hear  more  in  a 
later  chapter.  It  was  put  up  to  the  Chief  Quarter- 
master, or  the  "C.Q.M.,"  as  he  is  familiarly  called, 
to  locate  and  equip  the  General  Headquarters  of  the 
A.E.F.  and  which  were  opened  on  September  1st,  1917, 
at  Chaumont,  a  little  town  in  the  North  that  will  be  for 
ever  famous.  Here,  and  almost  within  stone  throw 
from  General  Pershing's  office,  General  Rogers  set  up 
shop  with  five  assistants.  From  this  has  grown  his 
overseas  supply  army  which  now  numbers  more  than 
3,000  officers  and  85,000  men,  all  bound  by  a  sense  of 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  125 

loyalty  and  service  which  reflect  the  character  and 
purpose  of  the  man  at  the  head. 

There  is  no  space  tere  to  tell  the  story  of  the  mar- 
vellous expansion  of  the  Supply  Service.  The  first 
Quartermaster  Depot  in  that  one-time  fishing  village 
where  the  American  flag  was  planted  in  France  was 
the  lone  outpost  of  the  continuous  bulwark  of  food  and 
equipment  that  now  stretches  more  than  four  hundred 
miles  from  the  sea  to  the  front.  Whether  these  De- 
pots feed  five  hundred  men  or  five  hundred  thousand 
the  system  is  just  the  same.  Three  times  a  day  in 
fair  weather  or  foul,  in  battle  lull  or  amid  the  hail 
of  lead,  the  dough-boy  literally  gets  the  dough — and 
a  great  deal  more.  We  have  capitalised  every  expe- 
rience of  the  British  and  have  added  some  trimmings 
in  the  bargain. 

To-day  the  office  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster  at 
Tours  is  precisely  like  the  office  of  the  President  and 
General  Manager  of  the  greatest  Distributing  Corpo- 
ration in  the  world.  On  his  wall  hangs  that  eight- 
foot  super-blueprint  which  outlines  the  organisation. 
At  the  apex  is  General  Rogers.  Immediately  under 
him  is  the  Deputy  Chief  Quartermaster,  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral J.  M.  Carson,  who  is  his  understudy.  Linked  up 
with  the  Chief  Quartermaster  are  three  assistants, 
Brigadier  General  J.  F.  Madden,  Colonel  A.  K.  Bas- 
kette  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  J.  P.  Castleman.  They 
do  just  what  the  assistants  to  the  head  of  a  commer- 
cial concern  do.  Supporting  the  Deputy  Chief  Quar- 
termaster is  the  Chief  of  the  Inspection  Division, 
Colonel  M.  J.  Henry.  You  must  understand  that  it  is 


126  S.  O.  S. 

only  through  constant  inspection  that  these  wheels  of 
supply  are  kept  moving.  In  this  group  you  have  what 
would  correspond  to  the  principal  executive  heads  of 
a  huge  Supply  Corporation. 

Extending  from  this  group  are  the  myriad  lines 
that  link  up  the  various  Divisions.  First  and  fore- 
most comes  Supplies,  which  means  subsistence  of  all 
kinds — fuel,  forage,  clothing,  vehicles,  warehousing, 
gardens  (for  we  raise  our  own  vegetables)  and  cold 
storage.  The  other  Divisions  are:  Salvage;  Re- 
mounts; Accounting;  Finance;  Personnel;  Adminis- 
tration; Construction  and  Repair;  and,  final  service 
in  the  life  of  the  soldier — Graves  Registration.  With 
the  exception  of  this  last-mentioned  Section  you  have 
the  complete  working  units  of  a  well-knit  commer- 
cial institution  that  deals  in  food,  transport,  garden 
truck,  and  does  considerable  manufacturing  on  the 
side.  The  Heads  of  these  Divisions  are  like  the  di- 
rectors of  a  corporation  (they  are  a  Supply  Directo- 
rate) and  sit  in  with  the  Chief  Quartermaster  and  his 
Deputy  at  daily  or  called  conferences  which  are  pre- 
cisely like  the  sessions  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  or  the  Interna- 
tional Harvester  Company.  Every  Division  knows 
what  the  other  is  doing ;  each  Head  profits  by  the  ex- 
perience of  his  colleague ;  their  united  effort  spells  the 
success  of  the  extraordinary  institution  which  fur- 
nishes the  mainstay  of  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force. 

Now  let  us  take  a  swift  survey  of  the  Lines  of  Sup- 
ply. You  can  see  them  on  the  huge  Map  of  Distribu- 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  127 

tion  that  hangs  in  General  Rogers'  .office.  Red  rib- 
bons indicate  the  various  Sections  into  which  we 
divide  France.  Each  one  of  these  Sections,  as  I  ex- 
plained in  the  first  chapter,  is  a  little  independent  Sov- 
ereign State  of  Supply  with  a  Commanding  General 
who  corresponds  to  a  Governor.  All  form  what  I 
call  the  United  States  of  Supply  abroad.  The  Chief 
Quartermaster  has  a  small  army  in  each  one  of  these 
States.  In  the  Base  Sections,  which  include  one  or 
more  ports,  there  is  a  Base  Quartermaster  who  is 
the  Ranking  Subsistence  Officer  charged  with  Supply 
administration.  Every  Supply  Depot  in  that  Section 
has  a  Depot  Quartermaster  who  sees  that  supplies  are 
received,  stored  in  warehouses,  or  reloaded  on  cars 
or  trucks  and  sent  up  the  line  to  other  Depots  or 
straight  to  the  front.  There  is  a  continuous  move- 
ment of  stuff.  With  Supplies  life  is  one  continuous 
round  of  rehandling,  repacking  and  redistribution.  It 
is  the  uncompromising  price  that  adequate  sustenance 
of  the  fighting  man  exacts. 

If  all  our  food  and  supplies  could  be  shipped 
straight  from  the  port  of  arrival  to  the  consumer, 
which  is  the  army,  our  job  would  be  comparatively 
easy.  We  could  mobilise  it  all  in  warehouses  at  once, 
two  or  three  ports,  and  send  it  up  in  trains  and  trucks 
which  would  merely  mean  an  automatic  renewal  of 
Base  stocks.  But  the  American  Expeditionary  Force 
is  spread  out  over  four  hundred  miles  of  communica- 
tion; it  must  feed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  split 
up  in  units  that  range  from  five  hundred  to  hundreds 
of  thousands.  We  must  keep  in  France  a  ninety 


128  S.  O.  S. 

days'  reserve  of  food  for  our  whole  overseas  force 
and  all  these  subsistence  eggs  must  not  be  stored  in 
one  basket.  In  addition,  the  enemy  infests  the  air, 
and  there  is  always  the  danger  of  raids  in  some  quar- 
ters. To  cap  all  this  is  the  incessant  flood  of  sup- 
plies that  is  arriving  in  France  at  the  rate  of  tens  of 
thousands  of  tons  a  day.  There  must  be  no  conges- 
tion at  the  ports.  Hence  there  was  devised  a  system 
which  scatters  the  storage  and  provides  for  a  chain 
of  huge  Supply  Depots  that  begins  at  the  Base  and 
extends  far  up  into  the  Advanced  Section. 

The  Depots  at  the  ports  are  called  Base  Supply 
Depots  where  a  forty-five  days'  supply  is  kept.  Half 
way  between  sea  and  front  are  the  Intermediate  Sup- 
ply Depots  which  house  a  thirty  days'  supply,  while 
those  still  nearer  the  zones  of  the  armies  are  tech- 
nically known  as  Advanced  Supply  Depots  built  to 
hold  fifteen  days'  rations  for  the  overseas  forces. 
Each  one  of  these  institutions  is  a  full-fledged  City 
of  Supply  with  acres  and  acres  of  closed  and  open 
storage;  thousands  of  employes,  with  receiving,  de- 
parture and  classification  railway  yards;  with  water- 
works system,  fire  department,  police  force — indeed 
every  detail  of  a  self-contained  orderly  and  thriving 
community.  If  you  want  one  stirring  evidence  of 
American  foresight  and  enterprise  abroad  just  go  to 
one  of  these  Capitals  of  Subsistence  and  you  will  see 
sections  of  New  York,  Chicago,  Detroit  and  "other 
points  West"  all  rolled  into  one  dynamic  centre  of 
life  and  action.  This  chain  of  Supply  Depots  is  linked 
up  with  hundreds  of  miles  of  railroad  over  which  an 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  129 

almost  unending  procession  of  American  Supply  trains 
made  up  of  American  cars,  hauled  by  American  en- 
gines and  operated  by  American  crews,  travel  day  and 
night. 

Before  we  dissect  the  vast  body  through  which 
flows  the  life-blood  of  our  overseas  armies  we  must 
first  find  out  what  constitutes  the  life-giving  suste- 
nance. In  other  words,  what  does  the  doughboy  eat? 
Here  we  get  to  the  one  war  subject  of  supreme  and 
universal  interest  Everybody  eats;  every  one  has 
some  friend  or  relative  in  France;  therefore  he  is  con- 
cerned about  his  fare  and  welfare.  The  diet  sheet 
of  the  soldier  is  as  important  as  the  annal  of  an  ad- 
vance and  is  infinitely  more  regular. 

In  the  last  three  years  I  have  eaten  in  the  messes 
of  the  American,  British,  French,  Italian,  Belgian  and 
Russian  armies.  Out  of  all  this  experience  I  am  free 
to  confess  that  no  soldier  (I  cannot  of  course  speak 
of  the  war-time  German  commissary)  is  better  fed 
than  ours.  With  the  possible  exception  of  the  Brit- 
ish Tommy  none  gets  such  quantity  and  variety.  I 
have  had  griddle  cakes  with  syrup  at  an  enlisted  men's 
mess  at  a  Base  port,  while  at  officers'  tables  in  the 
field  I  have  had  apple  pie,  white  rolls,  biscuits  and 
corn  bread,  all  piping  hot,  that  were  as  palatable  as 
any  I  ever  had  in  America  and  all  made  out  of  the 
regulation  ration  issue.  You  can  only  realise  the 
miracles  that  a  good  cook  can  work  with  tinned  beef 
when  you  try  some  of  the  many  kinds  of  stew  that 
emerge  from  the  ordinary  travelling  kitchen  often 
bricked  up  in  an  open  field.  Uncle  Sam  believes  with 


130  S.  O.  S. 

von  Moltke  that  "no  army  food  is  too  expensive."  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  good  food  is  a  good  investment,  in 
war  as  in  peace. 

The  so-called  ration  is  the  amount  of  food  that  a 
soldier  eats  every  day.  In  the  American  army  the 
various  articles  such  as  bread,  meat,  salt,  butter  and 
lard  that  go  to  make  up  this  ration  are  technically 
known  as  the  components.  This  ration  has  been  scien- 
tifically worked  out  by  the  best  food  experts.  As  far 
as  the  A.E.F.  is  concerned  it  is  based  on  all  our  pre- 
vious army  experience  in  many  climates  and  has  also 
had  the  added  value  of  the  investigations  of  the  Rock- 
efeller Institute.  Thus  the  food  that  is  served  every 
day,  rain  or  shine,  in  France  is  ample  fuel  for  the 
machine  that  works  and  fights. 

As  in  the  British  army,  we  have  different  kinds  of 
rations  to  meet  certain  needs.  The  standard  ration, 
however,  is  the  so-called  Garrison  Ration.  The  prin- 
cipal components  are  fresh  beef,  flour,  beans,  pota- 
toes, prunes,  coffee,  sugar,  evaporated  or  condensed 
milk,  vinegar,  salt,  pepper,  cinnamon,  lard,  butter, 
syrup,  baking  powder  and  flavouring  extract.  These 
major  articles  are  issued  in  given  quantities  for  each 
man.  It  is  up  to  the  mess  sergeant  and  the  cook  to 
do  the  rest.  If  the  mess  sergeant  is  enterprising  and 
the  cook  resourceful  these  articles  may  be  converted 
into  three  very  satisfactory  meals,  including  hot  cakes 
and  syrup  at  breakfast,  pie  at  dinner  and  ice  cream 
at  night. 

These  components,  however,  are  what  might  be 
called  the  stand-bys.  The  Quartermaster  provides  a 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  131 

host  of  substitutes  which  make  for  an  almost  infinite 
variety.  Instead  of  fresh  beef  the  men  get  mutton, 
bacon,  canned  meat,  dried,  pickled  or  canned  fish — 
mainly  salmon.  For  beans  the  substitutes  are  rice 
and  hominy;  for  Irish  potatoes  they  are  sweet  and 
canned  potatoes.  Frequently  as  a  potato  substitute 
onions  or  an  equal  quantity  of  canned  tomatoes  are 
served.  In  the  same  way  dried  or  evaporated  apples 
and  peaches,  jam,  figs,  dates  and  raisins  are  used  in 
place  of  prunes,  just  as  pickles  vary  with  vinegar  and 
tea  with  coffee. 

Whenever  possible  fresh  vegetables  are  a  part  of  the 
soldier's  daily  diet.  These  are  purchased  from  the 
French  farmers  in  large  quantities.  During  the  past 
twelve  months,  however,  the  Chief  Quartermaster  has 
instituted  a  regular  Garden  service  which  cultivates 
thousands  of  acres  of  gardens  which  are  in  general 
charge  of  a  Chief  Garden  Officer  who  in  civil  life 
was  a  one-time  farm  hand  who  rose  to  be  Manager  of 
a  show  farm  up  New  York  State.  These  gardens  are 
operated  by  soldiers  who  have  been  temporarily  or 
permanently  disabled  from  fighting.  They  not  only 
afford  excellent  employment  for  these  men  but  save 
the  army  thousands  of  dollars.  At  the  same  time 
they  contribute  wholesomeness  and  change  to  the  sol- 
dier's food.  The  only  trouble  that  ever  marred  the 
fresh  fruit  and  vegetable  ration  was  when  a  negro 
stevedore  from  Georgia  thought  that  a  French  melon 
was  a  faded  water  melon.  It  is  tribute  to  the  adapta- 
bility of  the  American  soldier  that  these  Southern 


132  S.  O.  S. 

darkies  have  acquired  an  ardent  if  expensive  taste 
for  French  melons. 

The  doughboy  is  a  carnivorous  animal.  For  him 
there  are  no  meatless  days.  His  fresh  or  frozen  beef 
allowance  therefore,  or  its  equivalent  in  mutton,  is 
twenty  ounces  a  day,  which  is  four  ounces  more  than 
the  allowance  of  the  British  soldier.  It  is  the  largest 
known  army  meat  ration. 

Every  month  some  new  feature  is  added  to  the  sol- 
dier's ration.  Thanks  to  General  Rogers  an  ounce  of 
bar  chocolate  is  now  a  ration  component.  Formerly 
the  only  chocolate  procurable  was  through  purchase 
at  the  Commissary  Stores.  During  the  past  fifteen 
years  the  efficacy  of  chocolate  as  a  fighting  man's  food 
has  been  amply  demonstrated.  It  began  in  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War  when  the  little  brown  men  scientifically 
showed  that  it  is,  in  many  respects,  the  most  compact 
and  sustaining  of  all  emergency  rations.  As  most 
people  know,  when  men  eat  candy  they  have  little 
desire  for  liquor.  The  man  on  the  water  wagon  nat- 
urally takes  to  sweets.  A  candy  famine  in  France 
therefore  works  almost  as  much  hardship  as  a  short- 
age of  meat 

Another  new  feature  is  macaroni,  which  is  not  only 
nourishing  but  when  mixed  with  cheese,  which  is  still 
another  new  component,  is  most  sustaining.  When 
macaroni  was  first  introduced  the  men  said  instinct- 
ively: "Do  you  think  that  we  are  a  bunch  of  'da- 
goes' ?"  As  soon  as  they  found  out  how  good  it  was 
they  changed  their  tune.  Now  they  almost  cry  for  it. 

Still  a  fourth  innovation  in  the  matter  of  ration 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  133 

issue  is  an  allowance  of  four  ounces  of  smoking  to- 
bacco with  cigarette  paper  or  an  equivalent  in  ciga- 
rettes. This  boon  for  the  Yankee  fighting  man  is  the 
direct  result  of  an  order  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  who  does  not  himself  smoke! 

The  Garrison  Ration  is  increased  for  the  troops 
in  the  front  line  trenches  from  November  to  March, 
inclusive.  The  meat  allowance  is  expanded  by  five 
ounces;  coffee  and  sugar  by  an  ounce  each.  The  man 
under  fire  also  gets  fifty  per  cent  increase  in  candles 
and  matches.  The  French  winter  with  its  intense  cold 
and  incessant  rain  makes  this  increase  in  stomach 
stoking  necessary. 

Of  course  bread  is  an  ill-important  item.  Our  men 
get  the  very  best  fresh  white  bread  available.  It  is 
supplied  to  troops  on  the  Lines  of  Communication  and 
in  the  field  with  equal  ease  and  quality.  The  field 
bread  is  in  ten  and  twelve  pound  loaves  and  goes  up 
to  the  troops  in  jute  sacks  forty-eight  hours  after  it 
has  left  the  oven.  We  have  a  string  of  hand-operated 
and  mechanical  bakeries  that  extends  from  the  ports 
up  to  the  zone  of  the  armies  and  where  every  pound 
of  the  1,700,000  pounds  of  bread  that  we  consume 
every  day  in  France  is  baked.  One  of  these  mechan- 
ical bakeries  has  a  daily  capacity  of  800,000  pounds 
of  bread ;  another  turns  out  400,000.  The  empty  flour 
sacks  are  sent  up  to  the  front  and  used  for  sand  bags. 
There  is  an  allowance  of  one  pound  of  bread  a  day 
for  each  man.  If  he  gets  tired  of  this  variety  he 
can  get  hard  bread  which  we  produce  in  immense 
quantities.  This  hard  bread  is  a  much  better  variety 


I34  S.  O.  S. 

than  the  famous  "hard  tack"  which  was  one  of  the 
prize  tooth  and  digestion  destroyers  in  the  world.  It 
is  excellent  and  when  soaked  in  coffee  is  most  desir- 
able. 

The  components  of  the  Garrison  Ration  lend  them- 
selves to  much  manipulation.  Here  is  a  sample  aver- 
age daily  menu  of  troops  on  the  Lines  of  Communica- 
tion :  for  breakfast  there  was  coffee  or  tea,  fresh  white 
bread,  ham  and  jam;  for  dinner,  as  the  midday  meal 
is  called,  there  was  roast-beef,  potatoes,  canned  toma- 
toes, fresh  white  bread,  butter  and  a  dessert  composed 
of  stewed  apples  and  raisins;  at  supper  the  men  had 
beef  stew,  white  bread  and  French  toast  and  syrup. 
This  is  typical  fare  and  it  is  served  with  abundant 
variation  whether  the  doughboy  is  behind  the  lines, 
in  camp  or  barracks:  travelling  on  a  troop  train,  or 
up  in  the  trenches.  With  the  American  army  larder 
there  is  no  such  phrase  as  "no  more."  Every  man 
gets  as  much  as  he  wants.  I  have  seen  mess  tins 
brought  up  three  times  in  rapid  succession  before  the 
ravenings  of  a  soldier's  hunger  were  appeased. 

The  so-called  Field  Ration  is  a  more  or  less  emer- 
gency or  campaign  ration  consisting  of  bacon  or 
canned  meat,  hard  bread,  beans,  potatoes,  dried  fruit 
or  jam,  sugar,  milk,  salt  and  pepper.  The  Reserve 
Ration,  which  in  some  respects  corresponds  with  the 
Iron  Ration  that  the  British  Tommy  carries  in  his 
haversack  all  the  time  in  case  of  a  breakdown  in  food 
transport,  consists  of  bacon  or  canned  meat,  hard 
bread,  coffee,  sugar  and  salt.  Our  men  must  keep 
this  on  their  persons  when  in  the  field.  Still  another 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  135 

Reserve  Ration,  which  is  kept  in  poison-gas  and  water- 
proof tin  containers  in  the  trenches  and  which  is  never 
touched  except  in  case  of  acute  need,  consists  of 
canned  meat,  prepared  chocolate  and  a  tinned  essence 
of  coffee  which  can  be  instantly  prepared  and  be  made 
ready  for  use  by  the  addition  of  hot  water. 

In  many  messes  the  men  have  special  funds  secured 
from  the  sale  of  garden  truck,  the  disposition  of 
kitchen  refuse  for  salvage,  of  the  raising  of  rabbits 
which  can  be  done  in  the  permanent  camps.  This 
money  is  used  for  the  purchase  of  ice  which  is  not  a 
ration  issue  or  other  luxuries.  One  Motor  Transport 
mess  at  a  Base  port  was  able  to  have  ice  cream  every 
day  as  a  result  of  a  well-organised  mess  fund.  Be- 
sides, all  members  of  the  A.E.F.  can  buy  preserves, 
extra  jam,  candy,  canned  goods,  cocoa  and  chocolate 
and  various  other  articles  not  issued  by  the  Quarter- 
master at  the  Sales  and  Commissary  Stores  which  are 
found  wherever  our  troops  are  stationed.  These  goods 
are  sold  at  cost. 

Such  is  the  food  supplied  to  the  American  troops. 
But  war  these  days  is  an  international  affair.  The 
mouths  that  we  must  feed  not  only  include  those  of 
the  German  prisoners,  who  get  ample  for  their  needs, 
but  likewise  the  mouths  of  the  Congress  of  Nations 
that  labour  for  us  everywhere  in  France.  They  in- 
clude Indo-Chinese  coolies  (the  Anamites),  Northern 
Chinese  labourers,  Italian  militarised  service  troops, 
French,  Spaniards  and  Greeks.  For  the  Indo-Chi- 
nese the  ration  is  largely  rice,  bread  and  meat  gar- 
nished with  garlic ;  for  the  Northern  Chinese  the  prin- 


136  S.  O.  S. 

cipal  components  are  rice,  bread  and  vegetables, 
mainly  turnips;  while  the  Italians,  French,  Spaniards 
and  Greeks  get  bread,  meat,  macaroni,  vegetables,  cof- 
fee and  a  daily  allowance  of  half  a  litre  of  red  wine. 
This  wine  is  as  necessary  a  part  of  the  daily  food 
issue  of  the  Latin  soldier  as  bread  or  meat. 

Although  we  are  feeding  more  than  a  million  and 
a  half  men  in  France  there  is  no  cook  problem.  That 
ancient  adage,  "God  sends  the  meat  but  the  devil  sends 
the  cook,"  has  no  echo  in  the  A.E.F.  Thousands  of 
trained  food  mechanics  were  caught  in  the  various 
drafts.  You  can  find  hash-slingers  from  the  popular 
price  restaurants  working  side  by  side  with  real  chefs 
from  the  swagger  restaurants  and  hotels.  At  the 
army  oven  all  men  are  equal.  They  are  only  judged 
by  results. 

Any  shortage  in  cooks  is  readily  filled  for,  like  the 
British,  we  have  a  School  for  Cooks.  The  men  get  a 
course  of  instruction  in  plain  cookery.  Then  they  are 
given  practical  tests.  They  must  try  their  food  on 
each  other  first.  You  may  be  sure  that  this  makes 
for  efficiency.  The  Government  also  issues  a  Manual 
for  Cooks  which  is  not  only  a  complete  and  scientific 
cookbook  with  hundreds  of  recipes  and  menus  but 
also  shows  with  simple  text  and  comprehensive  pic- 
tures how  to  cut  fore  and  hind  quarters  of  beef  and 
carcasses  of  pork  and  mutton  with  the  least  possible 
waste.  There  are  illustrations  which  show  cross-sec- 
tion of  field  ranges  and  camp  ovens.  In  order  to  meet 
any  emergency  or  breakdown  in  kitchen  equipment 
there  are  specific  directions  how  to  make  an  im- 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  137 

promptu  fireless  cooker  by  placing  a  milk-can  in  an 
ordinary  water  container  with  hay  or  straw  packed 
between.  This  book  is  as  complete  as  any  I  have  seen 
in  the  war.  It  is  fool  and  waste  proof. 

The  average  person  is  apt  to  assume  that  because 
the  army  kitchen  is  in  the  open,  in  temporary  quar- 
ters, or  on  the  move  it  is  lax  and  unsanitary.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  is  under  rigid  military  discipline.  For 
every  one  hundred  men  there  is  a  mess  sergeant  who 
is  the  czar  of  his  little  domain.  The  cooks,  dining 
room  orderlies  and  the  Kitchen  Police — the  "K.P.V 
— are  under  him.  The  "K.P.'s"  who  do  the  scullery 
work  are  recruited  from  the  men  disciplined  for  minor 
offences.  In  scrubbing  floors  and  gathering  garbage 
they  have  ample  time  to  reflect  on  their  misdeeds. 

"Cleanliness,"  to  quote  the  army  Order  invoking 
it,  "which  is  still  our  most  reliable  protection  against 
disease,"  is  drastically  enforced.  The  army  cooks 
are  required  to  keep  their  nails  trimmed  and  clean. 
They  must  scrub  their  hands  with  hot  water  and 
soft  soap  before  entering  the  kitchen.  There  is  a 
daily  issue  of  white  caps  and  aprons  which  are  worn 
all  up  the  line  as  far  as  the  area  of  fighting. 

Those  gallant  British  cooks  and  kitchen  orderlies 
who  dropped  their  frying  pans  and  dishes  and  rushed 
to  the  firing  line  at  the  first  battle  of  Ypres  have  noth- 
ing on  their  American  comrades.  Nearly  every  day 
you  hear  of  some  courageous  Yankee  who  kept  the 
pot  boiling  amid  shot  and  shell.  Not  long  ago  an 
army  cook,  Harry  C.  Ricket,  was  awarded  the  Dis- 
tinguished Service  Cross.  His  performance  was  so 


138  S.  O.  S. 

remarkable  that  I  present  the  Commander-in-Chief  s 
citation.  When  you  read  it  you  realise  that  there  is 
not  only  honour  but  glory  among  cooks.  Here  it  is: 

"He  maintained  his  kitchen  at  Chateau-de-la-F6ret, 
near  Villers-sur-Fere,  France,  on  July  28-29,  1918, 
during  a  bombardment  so  intense  as  to  drive  all  other 
kitchens  out  of  the  village.  When  his  stove  had  to 
be  taken  to  the  rear,  he  improvised  a  fire  in  the  ground 
and  continued  his  work  until  ordered  to  leave.  He 
carried  water  from  a  spring  which  was  repeatedly 
shelled  when  others  would  not  approach  it.  Unaided, 
of  his  own  volition,  he  conducted  a  first  aid  station 
for  wounded  and  exhausted  men  at  his  kitchen.  Con- 
stantly in  extreme  personal  danger  from  machine  gun 
fire  from  low  flying  airplanes  and  bombardment  by 
high  explosive  shells,  Cook  Ricket  devoted  himself 
entirely  to  the  needs  of  others  and  made  possible  the 
care  of  several  hundred  wounded,  exhausted,  and 
hungry  men." 

All  the  romance  of  the  war  is  not  where  danger 
calls  or  the  spotlight  shines.  Even  so  prosaic  a  task 
as  food  procurement  becomes  a  stirring  if  smokeless 
drama  of  achievement.  It  discloses  a  series  of  re- 
markable performances  by  an  equally  remarkable  man 
who  will  have  a  unique  place  in  the  record  of  the 
A.E.F.  To  know  what  he  did  you  must  first  know 
who  he  is,  for  he  is  the  embodiment  of  the  real  de- 
mocracy that  constitutes  our  overseas  force. 

Back  in  1897  an  immigrant  boy  of  sixteen,  Otto 
H.  Goldstein  'by  name,  arrived  in  Chicago  from  his 
home  in  Bohemia  where  his  father  was  a  rabbi.  When 
the  war  with  Spain  broke  out  he  joined  up  as  a  pri- 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  139 

vate  in  the  Second  Cavalry,  served  in  Cuba  and  the 
Philippines  and  rose  to  be  a  Top  Sergeant  which  was 
as  high  as  he  could  go.  In  1905  he  quit  the  army, 
entered  the  grocery  department  of  one  of  the  great 
mail  order  houses  which  have  helped  to  make  Chi- 
cago famous,  and  developed  such  executive  ability  that 
he  became  a  Manager.  A  few  years  later  he  went  into 
the  wholesale  grocery  business  on  his  own  and  had 
built  up  a  considerable  trade  when  we  declared  war 
on  Germany.  As  a  sidelight  on  his  subsequent  career 
let  me  add  that  he  mixed  considerably  in  politics  and 
served  a  term  in  the  Illinois  Legislature.  He  at  once 
offered  his  services  to  his  country;  was  made  a  Re- 
serve Officer  with  the  rank  of  Captain — he  is  now  a 
Major — and  began  a  whole  new  army  career  that  was 
to  be  as  dramatic  as  it  was  useful. 

Major  Goldstein  is  the  type  of  person  who  makes 
things  happen.  He  was  sent  as  student  to  a  Com- 
missary School  at  a  cantonment;  in  a  week  he  was 
instructor.  As  soon  as  he  arrived  in  France  he  was 
ordered  to  straighten  out  a  tangle  at  a  big  Supply 
Depot  in  the  Intermediate  Section  where  there  was 
difficulty  in  feeding  fifteen  thousand  men.  In  a  month 
he  was  supplying  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 

His  first  great  opportunity  now  developed.  Coffee 
is  among  the  fundamental  daily  ration  army  require- 
ments. It  became  evident  that  we  would  need  6,000,- 
ooo  rations,  or  280,000  pounds  of  the  roasted  and 
ground  bean  every  day,  which  exceeds  the  output  of 
any  private  plant  or  group  of  plants  in  the  world. 
General  Rogers  wisely  decided  that  to  save  tonnage 


140  S.  O.  S. 

and  likewise  meet  any  market  emergency  we  must 
have  our  own  army  coffee  industry.  This  is  how 
Uncle  Sam  began  his  career  as  manufacturer  for  the 
army  on  a  large  scale  abroad. 

Fortunately  a  large  stock  of  green  coffee  was  avail- 
able. There  had  been  a  remarkably  good  coffee  crop 
in  Brazil  just  before  the  European  war  began.  Ger- 
man financiers  started  to  get  a  corner  on  it.  As  a 
consequence  dealers  everywhere,  in  self-defence, 
bought  up  immense  quantities.  With  the  outbreak  of 
war  the  attempted  German  coup  failed,  prices  dropped, 
and  the  market  was  flooded.  Happily  an  immense 
quantity  of  this  coffee  was  in  France  and  it  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  A.E.F. 

The  problem  was  to  find  a  man  to  run  our  coffee 
business.  General  Rogers  had  known  of  Major  Gold- 
stein in  his  old  regular  army  day.  The  Major  had 
dealt  in  coffee  as  a  wholesaler  in  Chicago,  so  the 
roasting  and  grinding  job  was  put  up  to  him.  It 
was  easier  said  than  done.  No  coffee  machinery  was 
available  in  France  so  Goldstein  designed  roasters 
that  were  vastly  more  sanitary  and  efficient  than  the 
French  machines. 

He  then  set  about  to  establish  a  factory  at  a  little 
town  not  far  from  Paris  and  where  he  could  have 
both  water  and  railway  transport.  It  was  impossible 
to  find  a  suitable  structure  so  this  indomitable  one- 
time sergeant  said :  "I'll  build  a  factory."  He  leased 
an  abandoned  brickyard,  hired  several  hundred  dis- 
abled French  soldiers  who  made  bricks  stamped 
"U.  S.  A./'  and  with  them  constructed  a  model  elec- 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  141 

trically-driven  roasting  and  grinding  coffee  plant. 
When  I  saw  it  one  Sunday  in  September,  1918,  it  was 
using  90,000  pounds  a  day.  The  whole  process  is 
mechanical  from  the  moment  the  green  bean  is  emp- 
tied from  the  original  sack  until  it  emerges  brown, 
fragrant  and  powdery  into  the  fifty-pound  receptacle 
in  which  it  goes  to  storage  or  kitchen.  Nearby  was 
a  warehouse  that  contained  11,000  tons  of  the  green 
coffee. 

The  process  of  roasting,  grinding  and  hauling 
which  at  current  French  rates  would  cost  $112  a  ton 
is  done  at  the  army  factory  for  exactly  $18.80.  This 
coffee  is  delivered  to  the  army  kitchen  at  a  cost  to 
the  Government  of  14  cents  a  pound.  When  the 
present  immense  stock  of  green  coffee  is  exhausted 
the  new  supply  will  come  direct  from  Brazil  to  France 
which  will  save  rehandling  in  the  United  States  and 
the  second  tonnage  across  the  Atlantic.  In  order  to 
minimise  haulage  and  be  ready  for  any  of  the  con- 
tingencies that  arise  in  war,  Major  Goldstein  has  in- 
stalled three  other  model  roasting  and  grinding  plants, 
all  duplicates  of  the  original  establishment  and  where 
we  will  be  able  to  prepare  the  entire  6,000,000  daily 
rations  by  the  first  of  the  year.  At  the  Paris  plant 
he  has  trained  a  corps  of  men  to  operate  them. 

With  the  addition  of  the  ounce  of  chocolate  as  a 
daily  ration  component  Major  Goldstein  launched  his 
second  venture.  Once  more  General  Rogers  wanted 
to  save  tonnage  and  at  the  same  time  produce  his  own 
article  and  again  the  job  was  put  up  to  the  man  who 
had  revolutionised  the  coffee  business. 


142  S.  O.  S. 

In  France  the  manufacture  of  chocolate  was  greatly 
curtailed  during  the  war.  This  meant  that  acres  of 
chocolate-making  machinery — most  of  it  controlled 
by  a  small  group  of  manufacturers — were  idle.  It 
took  tact  and  diplomacy,  however,  to  rent  this  ma- 
chinery but  Goldstein  acquired  it 

To-day  in  nearly  a  dozen  factories  we  are  pro- 
ducing over  5,000,000  packages  of  chocolate  a  month. 
Of  this  4,000,000  pounds  is  the  ration  made  up  in 
ounce  bars,  while  the  rest  is  bonbons  which  are  sold 
at  the  sales  stores.  With  candy  Major  Goldstein  has 
wrought  another  tonnage  saving  revolution.  Before 
we  went  into  the  business  these  chocolate  candies  were 
sold  in  pound  circular  tins  that  cost  the  men  54  cents 
each.  They  not  only  used  up  vast  quantities  of  tin 
but  could  not  be  carried  on  the  person.  Major  Gold- 
stein packs  the  chocolates  in  flat  cardboard  half-pound 
packages  that  fit  into  the  pocket.  At  the  same  time 
they  save  forty  per  cent  in  tin  tonnage.  What  is 
equally  important  these  packages  are  sold  to  the  men 
at  24  cents  each.  We  also  produce  in  our  factories 
in  France  2,000,000  packages,  or  1,000,000  pounds  of 
stick  candy  and  lemon  drops  a  month.  Formerly  it 
was  packed  in  circular  tins  and  cost  35  cents;  in  the 
flat  cardboard  boxes  it  sells  for  12  cents.  Major 
Goldstein  is  not  particularly  popular  with  the  Amer- 
ican candy  manufacturer  but  he  is  ace  high  with  the 
soldiers  over  there. 

By  these  master  strokes  Major  Goldstein  came  to 
be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  Lloyd  George  of  army  pro- 
duction. "Let  Goldstein  do  it,"  became  the  maxim. 


FEEDING  THE  DOUGHBOYS  143 

General  Rogers  now  wanted  to  produce  hard  bread. 
Our  unexpected  participation  in  the  Paris  drive  last 
July  made  this  field  commodity  necessary.  Major 
Goldstein  was  given  a  third  chance  to  register  his 
resourcefulness  and  he  did  not  fail. 

Our  hard  bread  output  is  now  18,000,000  packages, 
or  9,000,000  pounds  a  month.  This  so-called  Iron 
Bread,  which  is  made  of  flour  and  water,  is  probably 
the  simplest  and  purest-baked  product  that  the  Amer- 
ican soldier  eats.  As  a  trifling  side  performance  Major 
Goldstein  has  begun  the  manufacture  of  sweet  crack- 
ers— the  delicious  petit  beurre — the  sweet  butter 
crackers  which  are  so  popular  in  France  and  which 
we  now  turn  out  at  the  rate  of  4,000,000  four-ounce 
packages  a  month.  They  are  sold  to  the  soldiers  af 
the  sales-stores  at  6  cents  a  package. 

All  army  manufactured  packages  bear  the  insignia 
of  the  Quartermaster  Corps  and  also  the  words: 
"Made  by  Q.M.C.,  A.E.F.,  U.S.A."  Likewise  they 
show  this  inscription:  "This  is  United  States  prop- 
erty and  cannot  be  sold."  These  two  precautions  are 
taken  to  protect  the  business  man  from  the  sale  of 
these  articles  by  unscrupulous  soldiers  and  to  permit 
the  American  Government  to  live  up  to  its  agreement 
with  the  French,  which  is  that  all  these  articles  are 
to  be  produced  and  used  by  the  army  alone. 

One  further  Goldstein  achievement  remains  to  be 
chronicled.  When  macaroni  was  adopted  as  a  ration 
substitute  and  as  a  tonnage  saver  it  was  put  up  to  this 
one-time  Chicago  wholesale  grocer  to  deliver  the 
goods,  and  he  began  to  deliver  them  forty-eight  hours 


144  S.  O.  S. 

after  he  got  the  order.  By  a  mechanical  process  that 
rivals  the  coffee-roasting  agency  for  simplicity  and 
cleanliness  he  is  turning  out  a  million  and  a  half 
pounds  of  macaroni  a  month.  He  is  the  Macaroni 
Man. 

Sum  up  the  Goldstein  army  achievement  and  you 
find  that  he  operates  exactly  seventy  factories  large 
and  small  that  did  not  exist  six  months  ago.  With 
hard  bread,  macaroni,  coffee,  and  candy  he  is  saving 
the  tonnage  of  eight  large  vessels  a  month.  He  has 
a  Brigadier's  sphere  and  authority.  It  is  typical  of 
the  man  that  he  should  install  a  standardised  factory 
control  and  operation  very  much  like  the  system  of 
salesmanship  and  store  arrangement  in  effect  in  a 
well-known  chain  of  retail  cigar  stores  in  the  United 
States  and  which  enables  a  man  to  go  from  a  New 
York  branch  to  one  in  San  Francisco  and  begin  sell- 
ing goods  without  delay.  In  the  same  way  Major 
Goldstein  is  training  factory  managers  and  foremen 
so  that  they  can  change  from  one  American  establish- 
ment to  another  and  take  hold  at  once. 

Animating  all  these  army  factories  is  a  spirit  of 
loyalty  and  a  determination  to  w,in  with  coffee  roaster 
as  with  gun  that  finds  expression  in  the  astounding 
results  that  I  have  enumerated.  They  are  inspired 
by  the  example  of  this  self-made  soldier — a  type  of  the 
American  by  adoption  who  represents  a  patriotism 
behind  the  lines  and  elsewhere  that  is  kin  to  the  dash 
and  gallantry  of  the  fighting  troops.  There  was  scant 
aid  or  comfort  for  the  German  in  the  revelation  of 
what  the  Goldsteins  of  the  American  army  did. 


VI— The  Cities  of  Supply 


THE  manufactured  output,  imposing  as  it  ap- 
pears, is  a  mere  trifle  in  the  vast  sum  of  sup- 
plies that  we  need  for  our  army  in  France. 
The  great  bulk  of  it  must  be  brought  from  America. 
How  do  we  keep  the  larder  filled  ?  The  answer  brings 
us  to  another  and  all-important  link  in  the  chain  of 
army  supply  and  to  the  door  of  a  vital  branch  of  the 
American  Business  of  War. 

To  see  how  it  is  done  we  must  go  back  to  General 
Rogers'  establishment  at  Tours.  In  that  eight-foot 
blueprint  chart  of  organisation  that  hangs  on  his  wall 
the  Division  of  Supplies  has  the  place  of  honour  in 
the  centre.  Technically  known  as  "Estimate,  Care 
and  Distribution,"  it  keeps  its  finger  on  the  state  of 
food  supply  overseas  and  its  renewal.  In  charge  is 
Colonel  C.  B.  Crusan,  whose  job  is  to  see  that  the 
Quartermaster's  shelves  are  always  stocked. 

The  backbone  of  the  whole  system  is  the  Auto- 
matic Supply  by  which  confusion,  hardship  and  short- 
age of  food  and  supplies  are  avoided.  It  means,  as 
I  explained  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  monthly  upkeep 
of  the  ninety  days  of  reserve  stock — forty-five  days 
at  the  Base  Depots,  thirty  at  the  Intermediate  and 
fifteen  at  the  Advance — which  is  kept  in  France  for 
all  troops  shipped  from  the  United  States.  This 


146  S.  O.  S. 

monthly  replacement  must  of  course  be  modified  to 
meet  expansion  or  emergency.  The  Automatic  Sup- 
ply also  applies  to  forage,  clothing,  animal-drawn  ve- 
hicles and  all  other  supplies  that  come  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  Quartermaster  Corps.  Hence  Colonel 
Crusan's  two  principal  labours  are:  first,  to  find  out 
just  how  many  mouths — men  and  beast — we  have  to 
feed  and  what  we  have  on  hand  to  feed  them  with; 
second,  to  allot  the  Quartermaster's  tonnage  so  that 
all  needs  and  deficiencies  will  be  supplied. 

He  is  able  to  keep  a  daily  check  on  supplies  by  a 
system  of  Intelligence  which  is  so  complete  and  com- 
prehensive that  every  morning  there  is  laid  on  his 
desk  and  on  the  desk  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster,  a 
chart  which  shows  the  exact  amount  of  ration  com- 
ponents on  hand  in  terms  of  days  at  the  twenty  huge 
main  Supply  Depots  in  France.  This  Daily  Supply 
State,  as  it  is  technically  called,  is  one  of  the  many 
remarkable  exhibits  of  centralised  supply  control  that 
provide  the  unfailing  antidote  against  hardship  and 
hunger.  The  information  is  sent  in  by  telegraph  be- 
tween 8  o'clock  and  midnight  every  night  by  Statistical 
Officers  stationed  at  the  Supply  Depots.  It  arrives 
during  the  early  hours,  is  summarised,  and  set  down 
on  individual  cards.  There  is  a  card  for  each  compo- 
nent. The  master  chart  is  made  up  from  these  cards 
and  is  ready  by  the  time  General  Rogers  and  his  as- 
sistants are  at  their  desks  in  the  morning.  At  a  glance 
they  know  precisely  what  the  food  situation  is. 

The  Daily  Chart  of  Ration  Components  and  For- 
age on  Hand — the  Daily  Supply  State — is  so  concrete 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  147 

that  a  child  can  understand  it.  At  one  side  is  printed 
a  list  of  thirty-one  Ration  Components,  including 
fresh  and  tinned  beef,  bulk  and  tinned  bacon,  flour, 
dry  and  baked  beans,  rice,  potatoes,  prunes,  coffee, 
sugar,  milk,  salt,  lard  and  syrup.  Also  included  are 
cigarettes,  cigarette  papers,  smoking  and  chewing  to- 
bacco and  the  three  principal  forage  items,  which  are 
hay,  oats  and  bran. 

At  the  top  of  the  chart  is  a  scale  showing  total 
days  supplies  up  to  150.  The  supply  on  hand  is  indi- 
cated by  a  coloured  horizontal  bar  under  this  scale. 
The  Base  Depots  are  represented  by  blue;  the  Inter- 
mediate by  green;  the  Advance  by  red.  If  a  red,  blue 
and  green  bar  extends  from  item  "Dry  Beans"  and 
stops  under  the  figure  100  it  means  that  we  have  one 
hundred  days'  supply  of  dry  beans  at  all  three  types 
of  Supply  DeptfvS.  If  the  bar  should  only  be  green 
and  blue  (which  never  happens)  it  would  mean  that 
we  only  have  beans  at  Base  and  Intermediate  Depots. 
Where  we  have  supplies  that  extend  in  days  beyond 
150,  such  as,  for  example,  200,  this  number — 200 — 
is  put  in  the  last  column.  Such  is  the  chart  for  "All 
Depots."  There  is  also  a  chart  for  each  individual 
Depot.  If  it  is  an  Advance  Depot  the  horizontal  bar 
would  be  all  red;  the  Intermediate  Depot  card  would 
be  all  green ;  while  a  Base  would  be  in  blue.  A  Depot 
chart  is  kept  for  each  component. 

The  "Number  of  Days  Supply"  as  indicated  on 
these  charts  is  calculated  by  dividing  the  total  quan- 
tity of  each  article  by  the  ration  allowance  of  that 
article,  thus  determining  the  number  of  rations.  The 


148  S.  O.  S. 

number  of  rations  is  then  divided  by  the  Feeding 
Strength  in  France,  and  the  result  is  the  day's  sup- 
ply for  all  these  troops.  This  Feeding  Strength  is 
made  up  at  regular  intervals  by  the  Adjutant  Gen- 
eral. It  is  the  sum  total  of  every  mouth  that  we 
must  feed  overseas.  It  does  not  matter  whether  it  is 
the  mouth  of  a  General  or  a  teamster.  All  mouths 
look  alike  when  it  comes  to  making  up  this  great  list 
of  human  maws  which  must  be  filled  three  times  a 
day. 

The  Daily  Chart  enables  the  Chief  Quartermaster 
to  know  if  he  has  a  surplus  or  a  shortage  of  a  ration 
component.  If  he  has  a  two  hundred  days'  supply  of 
dry  beans  and  only  sixty  days'  supply  of  salt  he  evens 
up  these  two  items  in  his  next  tonnage  allocation  by 
ordering  more  salt.  Now  we  come  to  another  impor- 
tant function.  As  I  have  hitherto  explained,  the  ton- 
nage for  France  is  allocated  every  month.  There  is 
only  a  certain  amount  of  tonnage  which  must  be  used 
to  the  best  possible  advantage.  The  Chief  Quarter- 
master is  allotted  his  share.  It  is  up  to  him  in  turn 
to  allocate  his  allocation.  Here  is  where  the  Daily 
Chart  comes  in.  From  it  he  can  see  just  what  to  req- 
uisition. If  he  has  the  hypothetical  two  hundred  days' 
supply  of  dry  beans  on  hand  it  means  that  he  has  a 
big  surplus  over  requirements.  He  can  cut  down  his 
requisition  for  beans  and  build  up  his  requisition  for 
salt.  This  is  a  modification  of  the  Automatic  Supply. 
Thus,  wherever  you  touch  it  tonnage  allocation  be- 
comes a  matter  of  balancing  and  evening  up. 

Once  that  he  knows  what  quantities  to  requisition 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  149 

he  prepares  his  Priority  Cable  to  the  Acting  Quar- 
termaster General  at  Washington.  His  items  come 
in  the  order  of  their  urgency.  First  Urgency  is  al- 
ways Rations;  second  is  Forage;  third  is  Clothing; 
fourth,  Gasoline;  fifth  Equipage,  which  is  tentage, 
cooking  and  table  utensils  and  field  kitchens;  Miscel- 
laneous, which  are  tools,  nails  and  kindred  articles; 
and  finally  Animal-Drawn  Vehicles. 

With  the  Quartermaster  as  with  every  other  Serv- 
ice there  are  Exception  Requisitions  which  are  sep- 
arate from  the  Automatic  Supply  or  even  the  modifi- 
cations of  the  Automatic  Supply.  These  are  the  unex- 
pected demands  that  are  constantly  cropping  up.  They 
may  be  for  special  tools,  a  particular  kind  of  food 
for  convalescents,  a  special  brand  of  flour.  These 
are  requisitioned  in  special  cables  and  usually  marked 
"Expedite." 

Every  item  needed  by  the  Quartermaster  is  not 
specified  in  his  monthly  cable.  If  they  were  recorded 
his  cable  would  be  as  long  as  a  serial  story  because 
they  number  more  than  five  thousand.  At  Washing- 
ton the  standard  requirements  for  every  unit  of  twen- 
ty-five thousand  men  are  on  file  and  are  shipped  auto- 
matically. The  variations  become  the  modifications 
or  the  exceptional  requirements.  It  is  interesting  to 
add  that  there  is  a  card  in  the  Quartermaster's  Depart- 
ment at  Tours  for  every  one  of  the  five  thousand 
items  on  his  list  showing  the  exact  quantity  we  have 
on  hand  in  France,  when  new  supplies  were  ordered, 
and  when  they  are  due. 

The  Chief  Quartermaster  really  runs  a  Department 


150  S.  O.  S. 

Store,  or  rather  a  succession  of  monster  mail  and 
telegraphic  order  houses.  He  is  the  great  and  glori- 
fied sutler.  One  of  his  responsibilities  is  the  mainte- 
nance at  Tours  of  a  sample  room  which  includes  a 
"sealed  and  approved"  sample  of  the  myriad  items 
that  he  handles.  Side  by  side  you  can  see  tooth  paste 
and  Service  ribbons;  army  ranges  and  field  filtration 
plants;  riding  crops  and  communion  sets. 

The  Chief  Quartermaster  is  the  biggest  shipper  in 
the  whole  A.E.F.  He  monopolises  railway  trans- 
port just  as  he  uses  up  considerably  more  than  half 
of  all  the  available  tonnage.  This  means  that  the 
Chief  of  the  Supplies  Division  must  establish  a  very 
intimate  liaison  with  the  Transportation  Department. 
Every  day  Colonel  Crusan  gets  a  detailed  report  by 
telegraph  from  every  Supply  Depot  giving  the  num- 
ber, freight,  and  destination  of  every  subsistence  car 
loaded  and  shipped.  Here  is  where  we  establish  an- 
other contact  with  our  old  friend  the  Railway  Trans- 
port Officer. 

An  adequate  statistical  system  is  as  necessary  to  the 
successful  conduct  of  the  Quartermaster  Corps  as  lu- 
bricating oil  is  to  a  machine.  The  whole  structure 
of  ceaseless  operation  depends  upon  systematised 
knowledge  of  what  is  going  on.  New  Supply  Depots 
are  being  constantly  set  up  and  the  army  grows  daily. 
You  are  therefore  not  surprised  to  find  at  Tours  a 
School  for  Statistical  Officers  which  is  in  charge  of 
the  Chief  Statistician  of  the  Quartermaster  Corps, 
who  happens  to  be  Captain  R.  H.  Hess.  In  civil  life 
he  was  a  professor  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  151 

Like  so  many  thousands  of  his  fellow  Americans  he 
became  a  Reserve  or  what  the  British  call  a  Tem- 
porary Officer.  Without  the  splendid  service  of  these 
men,  many  of  them  already  of  middle  age,  who  left 
school,  factory,  office  or  rostrum  to  don  a  uniform, 
the  overseas  work  could  not  carry  on. 

Every  now  and  then  some  emergency  reveals  a 
high-priced  specialist  stuck  away  in  the  ranks  or  a 
subaltern.  When  Major-General  Harbord  became 
Commanding  General  of  the  Services  of  Supply  a 
special  train  was  made  up  for  his  use  on  inspection 
trips.  The  Chief  Quartermaster  wanted  a  man  with 
experience  with  men  and  substance  to  take  charge  and 
run  it.  When  the  cards  of  the  Personnel  Division 
were  examined  (there  is  a  card  for  every  man  stating 
his  previous  experience)  the  former  Manager  of  a 
fashionable  Boston  Hotel  who  had  received  $10,000 
a  year  for  his  services,  who  had  enlisted  as  private 
and  risen  to  be  a  Second  Lieutenant  then  in  charge 
of  a  bakery  Company,  was  discovered.  He  was  called 
in  from  his  obscure  post,  made  Manager  of  the 
"C.G.'s"  special  train,  which  is  run  as  efficiently  as 
the  Waldorf  or  the  Blackstone  Hotels. 

When  you  analyse  the  actual  quantities  that  come 
under  the  control  of  the  Quartermaster  you  stir  up 
staggering  statistics.  In  a  war  that  was  believed  to 
have  exhausted  titanic  numerals  before  we  got  in, 
the  American  figures  make  a  whole  new  record.  Let 
us  now  gird  up  our  strength  and  take  a  plunge  into 
this  sea  of  bounding  billions.  It  is  no  great  secret 
that  by  the  spring  of  1919  if  peace  had  not  come  our 


152  S.  O.  S. 

army  overseas  would  have  been  equal  to  the  combined 
British  and  French  forces  in  France.  To  maintain  this 
army  at  full  strength  from  July  ist,  1918,  to  June 
3Oth,  1919,  would  have  required  the  annexation  of 
a  world  of  supplies  without  end  or  precedent. 

We  will  begin  with  subsistence.  It  would  have 
taken  approximately  500,000,000  pounds  of  fresh 
beef;  184,428,000  pounds  of  tinned  beef;  570,000,000 
pounds  of  potatoes;  75,000,000  pounds  of  coffee, 
which  will  make  300,528,000  gallons;  31,269,000 
pounds  of  jam;  218,000,000  pounds  of  sugar;  888,- 
000,000  pounds  of  flour;  191,000,000  pounds  of  ba- 
con; and  65,500,000  pounds  of  evaporated  milk. 

With  clothing  the  figures  are  no  less  bewildering. 
The  army  needs  would  have  been  11,304,000  pairs  of 
breeches;  7,524,000  wool  coats;  8,181,818  caps;  18,- 
000,000  shoes;  30,800,000  pairs  of  stockings;  3,280,- 

000  pairs  of  rubber  boots;  14,292,000  spiral  puttees 
or  exactly  52,875  miles  of  the  yellow  leg  wrappers. 

1  might  add  for  further  edification  that  the  amount 
of  cloth  for  breeches  and  wool  coats  will  aggregate 
3 1, 777, 1 10  yards. 

If  you  want  still  another  glimpse  of  super  quantity 
I  have  only  to  add  that  in  the  matter  of  hay  alone  our 
beasts  would  have  eaten  4,091,852,000  pounds.  In 
bales  double  compressed  and  placed  end  to  end  this 
hay  would  reach  one  and  a  half  times  round  the  earth 
at  the  equator.  Stacked  ten  feet  high  these  bales 
would  cover  460  acres.  It  is  enough  hay  to  last  one 
horse  862,350  years. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  supplies  on  paper.    We 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  153 

can  now  go  into  the  mechanics  of  operation  and  fol- 
low the  actual  food  from  port  to  trench.  We  will 
begin  at  the  docks  where  the  trains,  loaded  direct 
from  the  ships,  are  rushed  to  the  Base  Supply  Depots, 
the  first  stage  of  our  journey  and  which  are  usually 
located  from  five  to  ten  miles  from  the  ports.  Under 
ideal  conditions  these  establishments  must  maintain 
forty-five  days'  rations  for  the  whole  overseas  forces. 
They  are  all  similar  in  scope  and  system.  For  the 
sake  of  illustration  I  will  take  one  of  the  largest  which 
incarnates  American  hustle  at  its  height.  It  is  at 
St.  Sulpice  near  Bordeaux. 

A  year  ago  the  site  was  a  serene  stretch  of  farm 
and  vineyard;  to-day  it  is  a  City  of  Warehouses  that 
throbs  with  incessant  movement.  Here  as  elsewhere 
the  warehouses  are  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  huge 
ladder.  Three  warehouses,  end  on  end,  are  the  rungs 
while  the  main  lines  of  railways  are  on  the  sides. 
Connecting  these  main  lines  are  endless  spurs  which 
enable  the  cars  to  be  switched  right  up  to  the  door 
for  unloading  and  reloading.  There  are  usually  three 
Grand  Groups  of  structures  each  divided  into  Sections 
which  contain  six  warehouses.  Some  of  these  Groups 
comprise  fifty  or  sixty  buildings.  We  use  a  standard 
warehouse  fifty  feet  wide  and  four  hundred  feet  long. 
Some  are  of  fabricated  steel  and  can  be  erected  in 
ten  hours;  others  have  wooden  supports  with  corru- 
gated iron  sides  and  roofs.  We  must  build  and  use 
at  the  same  time.  Often  a  warehouse  is  filled  with 
food  before  it  is  under  roof.  These  immense  Depots 
literally  grow  over  night. 


iS4  S.  O.  S. 

The  specific  Depot  that  we  are  visiting  would  have 
had,  when  completed,  nearly  3,000,000  feet  of  closed 
storage  and  6,000,000  feet  of  open  storage.  Two- 
thirds  had  been  installed  when  I  saw  it  late  last  Au- 
gust. Ninety  per  cent  of  the  space  is  used  for  Quar- 
termaster Stores.  You  can  wander  through  acres 
and  acres  of  food.  A  single  unfloored  warehouse  con- 
tains 12,000,000  pounds  of  flour.  In  a  comparatively 
small  group  of  buildings  I  saw  40,000,000  rations  of 
milk;  75,000,000  rations  of  tobacco;  40,000,000  ra- 
tions of  canned  pork  and  beans;  35,000,000  rations  of 
sugar;  35,000,000  rations  of  flour;  and  20,000,000 
rations  of  coffee.  This  mass  of  merchandise,  which 
merely  represented  the  foot-hills  of  our  overseas  range 
of  subsistence,  was  all  brought  from  the  United 
States,  a  fitting  tribute  to  the  triumph  of  our  sea- 
transport  over  the  German  submarine. 

The  vastness  of  these  Depots  is  such  that  an  in- 
spection on  foot  or  even  in  an  automobile  is  out  of 
the  question.  They  are  so  criss-crossed  with  rails 
that  you  must  use  a  "Scooter,"  which  is  a  motor- 
driven  hand-car  fitted  for  standard-gauge  tracks.  It 
took  me  nearly  half  an  hour  to  travel  over  this  plant 
at  passenger  train  speed.  Every  important  official  has 
his  own  "Scooter''  and  you  can  see  them  scooting  over 
the  place  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night. 

Although  millions  of  rations  pour  in  and  pass  out 
every  day  there  is  such  a  perfect  system  of  control 
that  every  case  and  sack  is  accounted  for.  Even  the 
broken  packages  are  carefully  assembled  and  repacked. 
They  are  eternally  under  a  sleepless  scrutiny  that  lets 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  155 

no  guilty  commodity  escape.  The  greatest  possible 
care  must  be  taken  of  all  articles  because  they  not 
only  represent  their  value  in  money  but  weeks,  some- 
times months,  of  solicitude  and  travel. 

In  charge  of  the  whole  establishment  is  the  Depot 
Quartermaster,  Colonel  Charles  E.  Wheatley,  who 
knows  every  evening  just  how  much  food,  clothing 
and  equipment  has  arrived  during  the  day;  the  exact 
quantity  of  supplies  by  items  under  his  acres  of  roofs, 
and  the  precise  number  of  loaded  cars  that  have  gone 
up  the  rail  to  the  Intermediate  and  Advance  Depots. 
At  a  Base  Supply  Depot  the  cars  are  loaded  in  bulk 
and  not  by  individual  ration  components.  Whole 
trainloads  of  groceries  or  forage  pull  out  in  rapid 
succession.  A  congestion  here  would  be  felt  instantly 
along  the  whole  line  of  food  communication. 

This  continuous  check  on  stocks  is  possible  because 
everything  is  recorded  on  paper.  The  warehouse  sys- 
tem will  illustrate.  Every  warehouse  has  a  Store- 
keeper— a  sergeant — usually  assisted  by  a  clerk — a 
private — who  keeps  a  Stock  Book  of  every  article 
that  is  handled.  Opposite  each  item  is  the  number 
and  mark  of  the  car  in  which  it  arrived  or  departed. 
This  Stock  Book  is  balanced  every  night  and  the  re- 
sult put  on  a  Warehouse  Receipt  which  is  sent  up  to 
the  Depot  Quartermaster's  Office  where  it  becomes 
part  of  the  general  records.  In  addition  every  Ware- 
house keeps  a  Stock  Card  for  every  item  it  carries. 
It  may  be  for  tinned  bacon,  sugar,  coffee,  flour,  coats, 
trousers  or  shoes.  In  the  office  of  the  Depot  Quar- 
termaster is  a  Master  Card  for  every  item  of  supplies 


156  S.  O.  S. 

in  the  plant  and  which  is  the  sum  of  these  Ware- 
house Cards.  From  it  the  Statistical  Officer  takes  the 
totals  which  he  telegraphs  to  the  Chief  Quartermaster 
at  Tours  every  night  and  which  go  to  make  up  the 
Daily  Chart  of  Ration  Components  that  General  Rog- 
ers finds  on  his  desk  every  morning. 

At  a  Base  Supply  Depot  as  many  as  four  hundred 
cars  come  and  go  every  twenty- four  hours.  How 
are  they  handled?  In  a  tiny  office  in  the  midst  of 
those  seething  acres — "our  little  hut  on  the  hump," 
as  it  is  called,  for  the  gravity  hump  of  the  railway 
classification  yard  is  nearby — sits  the  Co-ordinating 
Officer  who  runs  the  whole  traffic  show.  His  job  is 
to  co-ordinate  orders,  cars  and  shipments  and,  to 
quote  one  of  them,  "it  is  some  co-ordinating." 

It  would  take  a  book  to  give  a  complete  record  of 
what  these  "C.O.'s"  do.  Briefly  the  system  is  this: 
when  a  train  arrives  from  a  port  an  Assistant  Co- 
ordinating Officer  chalks  on  each  car  the  number  of 
the  warehouse  to  which  it  must  go.  This  is  called 
"spotting"  a  car.  If  it  is  flour  it  goes  to  a  flour  ware- 
house; canned  goods  to  a  grocery  warehouse,  and 
so  on.  He  has  in  hand  a  list  of  available  structures. 
Every  effort  is  bent  to  "spot"  cars  at  night  and  at 
noon  while  the  labourers  are  eating  or  sleeping  so  as 
to  avoid  pulling  cars  in  or  out  while  others  are  being 
loaded  or  unloaded.  After  the  train  is  marked  it  is 
broken  up  and  switched  to  the  warehouses  for  un- 
loading. This  completes  the  work  on  incoming  trains. 

For  outgoing  trains  the  shipping  order  first  goes 
to  the  Co-ordinating  Officer  who  computes  the  number 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  157 

of  cars  required.  These  cars  are  then  "spotted"  for 
the  warehouses  from  which  the  supplies  are  to  be 
secured.  An  "Order  to  load"  automatically  goes  to 
the  Storekeepers  who  not  only  load  but  attach  to 
each  car  the  United  States  Army  label  which  gives, 
in  English  and  French,  the  car  number,  mark,  destina- 
tion, date  of  shipment,  weight,  contents,  consignor, 
consignee  and  the  signature  of  the  person  who  loads 
and  seals  the  car.  It  is  now  up  to  the  Railway  Trans- 
port Officer  to  assemble  these  cars  and  send  them  on 
their  way.  A  so-called  convoy,  that  is  an  enlisted 
man,  is  sent  with  each  train-load  of  supplies  as  guard. 
He  is  required  to  report  its  arrival  at  destination  by 
wire. 

The  railway  yards  that  are  part  of  this  establish- 
ment include  a  cold  storage  plant  which  will  have  a 
capacity  of  4,000  tons  of  beef  a  day;  a  waterworks 
system ;  coal  yard ;  ash  dump,  and  completely  equipped 
locomotive  shops.  Practically  every  scrap  of  mate- 
rial employed  came  across  three  thousand  miles  of 
submarine-infested  seas.  I  cite  these  facts  merely 
to  show  the  immense  amount  of  construction  that 
attaches  to  the  installation  of  these  Depots  alone. 

Prodigies  of  labour  are  performed  every  day  at  this 
and  other  Depots  and  they  are  merely  part  of  the  rou- 
tine. Upon  one  occasion  an  order  came  in  for  a 
hurry-up  shipment  of  flour  for  the  French  army.  It 
was  at  the  close  of  a  boiling  day  in  August  and  the 
negro  labourers — those  smiling  darkeys  from  the  cot- 
ton plantations  of  the  South — were  "all  in."  The 
flour  had  to  be  loaded  and  shipped  at  once.  The 


158  S.  O.  S. 

Director  of  Labour  assembled  his  men  (it  was  just 
after  supper),  told  them  of  the  emergency,  and  called 
for  volunteers.  Every  man  responded.  In  exactly 
fifty-five  minutes  those  black  heroes  had  loaded  700,- 
ooo  pounds  of  flour  in  sacks,  and  ten  minutes  later 
the  special  train  was  on  its  way.  Such  is  the  spirit  of 
the  "S.O.S." 

At  another  Base  Supply  Depot — Montoir,  near  St. 
Nazaire — bigger  in  area  and  action  than  the  one  I 
have  just  described,  the  project  called  for  two  hun- 
dred standard  warehouses  or  5,000,000  square  feet 
of  covered  storage  and  10,000,000  square  feet  of 
closed.  More  than  half  were  up  and  filled  when  I 
was  there  while  new  buildings  were  going  up  at  the 
rate  of  one  a  day.  Two  hundred  miles  of  railway 
already  linked  up  this  "City  of  Supply,  the  Mayor  of 
which  was  Colonel  Alexander  E.  Williams,  Depot 
Quartermaster,  a  famous  football  star  in  his  day  at 
West  Point  and  who  bucks  the  line  of  supplies  with 
the  same  force  and  success  as  he  did  on  the  grid-iron. 

While  making  a  tour  of  inspection  with  him  I  saw 
German  prisoners,  American-captured,  for  the  first 
time  in  this  war.  I  asked  one  of  them  what  he  thought 
of  America's  war  participation  as  shown  by  the  vast 
community  of  supplies  of  which  he  was  an  unwilling 
member  and  he  replied  (as  most  of  them  replied  wher- 
ever I  found  them  within  our  lines)  :  "We  had  no 
idea  that  America  was  doing  so  much.  Our  officers 
told  us  that  there  were  only  a  few  of  your  soldiers 
in  France."  Here  is  a  significant  revelation  of  Ger- 
man methods.  The  great  American  offensive  launched 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  159 

last  September  awakened  the  German  private  to  the 
serious  menace  of  the  Yankee  effort  for  the  first  time. 

Imposing  as  are  these  Base  institutions  they  seem 
small  beside  the  mammoth  Intermediate  Depot  that 
we  now  reach  on  our  pilgrimage  to  the  front.  Instead 
of  a  City  it  is  a  whole  self-contained  State  of  Supply 
with  a  Governor  in  the  shape  of  the  Commanding 
Officer,  Colonel  C.  J.  Symonds.  His  Commonwealth 
is  six  miles  square;  he  is  head  of  a  population  of 
twenty  thousand;  the  three  hundred  buildings  that 
dot  his  domain  house  nearly  $100,000,000  worth  of 
supplies.  A  year  ago  this  swarming  bee-hive  of  varied 
activity  was  a  stretch  of  scrubby,  sparsely  cultivated, 
unimproved  land.  Such  a  place  is  Gievres,  one  of  the 
many  miracles  of  America  in  France. 

Here  you  scale  the  Peak  of  Supply.  Although  the 
Quartermaster,  as  usual,  monopolises  the  bulk  of 
space,  there  are  stupendous  warehouses  for  Ordnance, 
Medical,  Engineering  and  Gas  and  Oil  Services.  You 
see  bakeries  going  at  full  tilt;  coffe  roasting  and 
grinding  mills  that  consume  70,000  pounds  of  the 
green  bean  a  day;  a  complete  ice  and  cold  storage 
plant;  tank  farms  and  army-operated  gardens  that 
help  to  provide  the  daily  fresh  vegetable  ration.  Now 
you  see  why  I  call  this  particular  Intermediate  Depot 
self-contained  and  why,  when  it  was  suddenly  and 
temporarily  converted  into  an  Advance  Depot,  it  was 
able  to  feed  and  equip  the  whole  army  that  General 
Pershing  swung  into  action  over-night  in  the  Paris 
drive  last  July  and  to  take  care  of  regular  business 
at  the  same  time. 


160  S.  O.  S. 

Once  more  you  have  the  bustling  spectacle  of  im- 
mense rehandling,  storing,  reloading  and  shipment  of 
bulk  stores — all  under  that  same  admirable  control 
that  records  everything  and  loses  nothing.  The  Depot 
Quartermaster,  Colonel  O.  G.  Collins,  is  the  centre  of 
what  seems  to  be  an  interminable  effort.  Yet  it  is  at 
his  ringers'  ends  all  the  time.  The  plan  of  Depot 
Standardisation  put  into  effect  by  General  Rogers  last 
September  has  stabilised  the  whole  storage  process. 

There  is  only  space  left  for  me  to  enlarge  upon  two 
of  the  many  features  which  make  this  Depot  unique 
in  the  whole  story  of  army  supply.  The  first  is  the 
system  of  ice  making  and  cold  storage  that  we  have 
set  up  in  the  midst  of  those  one-time  fields.  When  I 
tell  you  that  this  factory  has  a  daily  ice  making  capac- 
ity of  500  tons  (it  is  the  largest  ice  plant  under  one 
roof  in  the  world)  and  that  its  five  cold  storage  rooms 
hold  6,500  tons  of  beef,  you  get  some  idea  of  what 
one  branch  of  the  Quartermaster  Corps  here  repre- 
sents. Figuring  on  a  basis  of  a  pound  of  meat  per 
person  one  storage  room  alone  would  supply  the  city 
of  Chicago  for  a  whole  day,  while  the  total  capacity 
of  the  five  storage  rooms  would  provide  meat  for  the 
combined  populations  of  New  York,  Chicago,  Phila- 
delphia, St.  Louis,  Detroit,  Boston  and  Cleveland  for 
the  same  period.  The  cooling  coils  for  the  expansion 
of  ammonia  laid  end  to  end  would  reach  from  New 
York  to  Philadelphia.  This  establishment  built  by 
the  army  for  the  army,  and  constructed  in  less  than 
five  months,  employs  six  hundred  men  day  and  night. 
Every  twenty-four  hours  one  hundred  and  twenty  cars 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  161 

are  handled  at  its  platforms.  From  tiled  floor  to 
smoke-stack  all  the  material  used  was  transported 
from  America. 

The  second  outstanding  feature  is  the  remarkable 
system  of  Car  Control.  At  this  Depot  more  freight 
cars  are  handled  than  at  any  other.  Seventeen  en- 
gines are  required  for  switching  work  alone.  In 
August  thirteen  thousand  cars  came  and  went  and 
the  number  increases  each  month.  In  the  early  days 
it  was  comparatively  easy  for  the  Depot  Quarter- 
master to  keep  track  of  traffic.  He  could  walk  over 
the  yards  and  see  everything  with  his  own  eyes.  When 
those  tens  of  cars  expanded  into  hundreds  and  the 
project  annexed  square  miles  this  was  a  physical  im- 
possibility. It  is  vitally  necessary  for  him  to  know 
the  Car  and  Labour  situation  every  hour.  He  faced 
a  serious  problem. 

Colonel  Collins  met  this  emergency  by  devising 
what  is  known  as  the  Location  and  Distribution  Board. 
At  first  glance  you  think  that  it  is  one  of  those  huge 
boards  covered  with  coloured  pegs  that  the  military 
strategists  use  to  block  out  war  games.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  a  large  board  which  is  an  exact  plan  in 
wood  of  the  Quartermaster's  Depot  showing  ware- 
houses, open  storage  space,  ice  plant  and  the  railroad 
spurs.  The  Subsistence  warehouses  are  in  red,  Cloth- 
ing in  blue,  Miscellaneous  in  green,  Forage  in  yellow, 
and  Animal  Drawn  Transportation  in  brown.  In 
front  of  every  miniature  warehouse  is  a  succession 
of  holes  for  the  insertion  of  pegs.  These  pegs  repre- 
sent cars  and  are  stuck  in  or  removed  as  the  cars  are 


162  S.  O.  S. 

loaded,  unloaded  or  sent  away.  A  black  peg  repre- 
sents a  car  to  be  unloaded,  a  white  peg  is  an  empty 
car;  a  red  peg  a  car  to  be  switched;  a  combination 
green  and  black  peg  is  a  car  in  process  of  loading;  a 
green  peg  is  a  car  ready  for  shipment.  The  Labour 
units  whose  capacity  is  three  cars  every  four  hours, 
are  indicated  by  steel  nails  that  fit  the  holes.  Here 
are  the  pawns  and  the  board  for  the  all-important 
game  of  car  location  and  labour  distribution.  How 
is  it  played? 

Across  from  the  Board  sits  the  Traffic  Officer  who 
gets  constant  telephone  reports  of  the  "spotting"  and 
location  of  cars  and  the  progress  of  work.  He  com- 
municates these  facts  to  three  men  whose  sole  task  is 
to  keep  pegs  and  nails  properly  placed.  The  Board 
is  reset  every  hour.  Colonel  Collins' s  office  adjoins 
the  building  in  which  it  is  located  and  he  can  step 
in  every  few  minutes  and  see  at  a  glance  just  what 
the  situation  is.  If  traffic  is  booming  he  stands  by 
the  Board  all  day.  If  the  Board  shows  a  string  of 
black  pegs  with  only  one  nail  alongside  it  means  that 
there  is  insufficient  labour  there.  He  at  once  looks 
for  a  predominance  of  labour  elsewhere  and  orders  a 
readjustment.  Hence  the  Board  enables  work  to 
progress  with  uniformity.  Likewise  it  indicates  the 
improper  location  of  cars  and  thus  prevents  conges- 
tion. The  whole  objective  in  any  Supply  Depot  is  to 
keep  cars  moving.  Every  minute  that  a  car  stands 
idle  its  tonnage  is  lost  to  the  army.  Once  congestion 
begins  it  is  likely  to  become  cumulative.  The  Board 
provides  insurance  against  this  contingency. 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  163 

Knowing  these  facts  you  are  not  surprised  when  I 
say  that  a  notable  Supply  achievement  of  the  war  was 
registered  in  this  Depot.  At  8.15  one  morning  last 
August  a  telegram  was  received  ordering  exactly  4,596 
tons  of  supplies,  including  1,250,000  cans  of  toma- 
toes, 1,000,000  pounds  of  sugar,  600,000  cans  of  corn 
beef,  750,000  pounds  of  tinned  hash  and  150,000 
pounds  of  dry  beans.  At  6.15  o'clock  in  the  evening 
— or  just  ten  hours  later — this  colossal  requisition, 
which  required  457  cars  for  transport,  was  loaded  and 
on  its  way  to  the  Advance  Depot. 

Such  is  the  scope  and  capacity  of  an  American 
Intermediate  Supply  Depot.  In  my  war  wanderings, 
which  include  much  investigation  of  Supply  systems 
in  all  the  Allied  armies,  I  have  yet  to  encounter  an 
institution  that  approaches  this  one  in  magnitude 
and  operation.  A  twin  Depot  was  in  course  of  erec- 
tion at  the  time  the  armistice  was  signed.  Uncle 
Sam  did  not  do  things  by  halves  in  France.  More 
than  this,  every  Supply  establishment  is  capable  of 
almost  indefinite  expansion. 

At  the  Advance  Supply  Depot  you  are  one  step 
nearer  the  front.  It  only  carries  a  fifteen  days'  sup- 
ply and  is  therefore  smaller  than  the  other  Depots 
we  have  visited.  The  bulk  loading  system  now  ends. 
The  Depot  becomes  a  huge  Department  Store  that  car- 
ries everything  in  stock  from  toothpicks  to  overcoats. 
All  outbound  trains  are  packed  for  Divisions  or  other 
units  in  Balanced  Rations  for  actual  consumption  in 
training  area,  rest  camp  or  trench.  The  full  human 
Feeding  Strength  of  a  Division  is  28,000  mouths. 


164  S.  O.  S. 

The  Divisional  Pack  Train  therefore  hauls  every  ra- 
tion component  from  pepper  to  fresh  beef  for  28,000 
men.  These  trains  go  up  every  day. 

The  Advance  Depot  warehouse  must  necessarily 
be  a  glorified  grocery  shop.  It  carries  an  average  of 
1,125,000  Balanced  Rations  which  flow  from  the  load- 
ing platforms  on  gravity  rollers  into  the  waiting  cars 
and  are  checked  up  by  French  girls  who  relieve  able- 
bodied  men  for  other  tasks.  Every  unit,  whether  Ma- 
chine Gun  Battalion  or  Division,  has  its  goods  marked 
in  its  name.  The  car,  however,  is  consigned  to  the 
Railhead  where  the  Railhead  Officer,  who  has  a  list 
of  all  the  organisations  he  serves,  does  the  distribut- 
ing. Despite  the  ceaseless  ebb  and  flow  of  supplies 
the  Depot  Quartermaster  at  an  Advance  Depot  keeps 
a  daily  check  on  stock  on  hand;  cars  received,  un- 
loaded and  sent  on;  food,  fuel,  forage  and  clothes 
shipped,  and  the  state  of  labour. 

But  units  are  constantly  moving;  disease,  accidents 
or  casualties  thin  ranks;  replacements  of  men  are  con- 
tinually coming  up.  How  can  the  Depot  Quarter- 
master adapt  his  daily  shipments  to  these  constant 
changes?  Once  more  you  touch  an  interlocking  sys- 
tem of  Daily  Intelligence  tha-t  chronicles  change  and 
swiftly  adapts  supplies  to  needs.  It  brings  us  for 
the  first  time  to  the  threshold  of  one  of  the  most  use- 
ful and  important  individuals  in  the  whole  "S.O.S." 
— the  Regulating  Officer.  In  the  British  Army  he 
merely  regulates  the  Divisional  Trains  at  the  Triage, 
as  the  Regulating  Station  is  called  in  French.  With 
us  he  not  only  does  this  but  is  the  Traffic  and  Supply 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  165 

Boss  in  his  part  of  the  Advance  Section  and  holds 
down  a  job  of  many-sided  responsibilities. 

Let  us  tarry  for  a  while  with  the  Senior  Regulating 
Officer  of  the  A.E.F.,  Colonel  M.  R.  Hilgard,  a  mas- 
ter manipulator  of  transportation  and  a  sure  enough 
live  wire.  "Be  Brief  and  Be  Quick"  is  his  motto; 
there  are  no  chairs  in  his  office  which  occupies  part 
of  a  little  frame  building  near  a  railway  station  some- 
where in  Northern  France.  A  year  ago  this  particular 
spot  drowsed  along  with  routine  traffic;  to-day  it  is 
a  maze  of  rails  that  bustle  with  animation.  Three 
thousand  cars  have  found  trackage  there  at  one  time. 
This  Regulating  Station  is  the  neck  of  the  whole 
American  Supply  Bottle.  Choke  it  up  and  the  flood 
of  food  stops  and  the  fighting  man  goes  hungry. 
The  army  accepts  no  excuses.  Supplies  must  move. 
This  is  why  you  find  a  man  of  the  Hilgard  calibre  in 
charge.  He  is  at  his  desk  from  early  morning  until 
midnight  and  sometimes  longer.  When  he  goes  to 
bed  (he  lives  within  a  stone's  throw)  there  is  a  tele- 
phone alongside.  The  traffic  Manager  of  the  Union 
Pacific  system  has  never  faced  problems  more  vital 
or  complicated  than  the  anxieties  that  press  down  on 
him  every  hour  of  the  twenty-four.  He  only  knows 
one  law,  which  is  "Troops  must  be  fed."  Once  when 
there  was  a  congestion  of  traffic  for  a  few  hours  he 
commandeered  two  hundred  motor  trucks  from  every- 
where and  everybody  and  kept  the  supplies  moving. 

To  Colonel  Hilgard — as  to  any  other  Regulating 
Officer — come  the  Daily  Requisitions  for  food  at  the 
front.  Every  Division  has  a  code  name.  Let  us 


166  S.  O.  S. 

say  that  it  is  Isabel.  If  Isabel  is  at  full  feeding 
strength  the  Daily  Requisition  for  her  would  simply 
read :  "Isabel  28,000."  The  Depot  Quartermaster  has 
the  list  of  Divisional  requirements  on  file  and  fills 
them  automatically.  If  Isabel  has  been  in  action  and 
has  had  casualties  the  Daily  Wire  would  read: 
"Isabel  23,000,"  which  means  that  this  unit  has 
lost  5,000  men.  If  Isabel  has  gone  back  to  a  rest 
camp  at  full  strength  the  message  would  say :  "Isabel 
has  moved  to  Blank — No  change."  I  have  used  the 
simplest  and  most  elemental  illustrations.  Sometimes 
the  units  are  indicated  by  numbers. 

At  this  point  you  will  ask :  "Who  makes  up  these 
Feeding  Strengths?"  This  is  an  easy  matter. 
Every  Division  has  a  Divisional  Quartermaster  to 
whom  each  unit  in  that  Division  (and  they  are  some- 
times scattered)  reports  its  daily  strength.  These 
Divisional  Quartermasters  report  to  the  Corps  to 
which  they  are  attached  and  the  Corps  in  turn  through 
its  Gi  or  Procurement  Section,  reports  to  the  G4  of 
the  Army  in  the  field  of  which  it  is  a  part.  The  G4, 
which  is  the  Great  Provider,  renders  the  Consolidated 
Feeding  Strength  to  the  Regulating  Officer.  Hence 
Colonel  Hilgard  knows  every  day  how  many  mouths 
must  be  fed.  He  orders  the  Depot  Quartermaster  of 
the  Advance  Depot  nearest  to  him  (in  this  case  they 
happen  to  be  located  side  by  side)  to  ship.  The  loaded 
cars  are  turned  over  to  the  Regulating  Officer  who 
hands  the  Railway  Transport  Officer  the  list  of  units 
for  whom  they  are  intended.  The  trains  are  made 
up  and  sent  off  like  clockwork  to  the  Railheads.  The 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  167 

record  is  twenty-three  trains  in  ten  hours.  In  August 
33,000  were  handled  at  one  station.  Once  started 
the  Regulating  Officer  advises  the  Railhead  Officer  of 
their  departure  and  gets  a  telegram  announcing  ar- 
rival. 

On  the  wall  alongside  Colonel  Hilgard's  desk 
hangs  a  huge  map  of  the  Advance  Section  and  the 
Fighting  Areas.  Each  Division  is  shown  by  a  red 
flag  (red  is  the  divisional  colour)  bearing  its  number. 
Corps  Headquarters  are  indicated  by  white  and  blue 
flags;  Army  Headquarters  by  red  and  white  flags; 
and  General  Headquarters  by  a  red,  white  and  blue 
flag.  The  Regulating  Officer  must  move  hospital 
trains  as  well  as  food  trains.  On  the  map  the  loca- 
tion of  every  hospital  train  is  represented  by  a  white 
flag  with  a  red  cross.  The  presence  of  hospitals  is 
revealed  by  red  crosses.  Each  day  the  Colonel  gets  a 
report  of  all  available  empty  hospital  beds  in  the  field 
and  in  the  rear — also  the  total  of  "walking"  cases. 
The  moment  an  offensive  is  started  he  knows  just 
where  to  rush  the  trains  of  mercy  and  succour.  The 
"walking"  cases  can  be  shifted  to  other  Sections. 

In  addition  Colonel  Hilgard  must  know  the  com- 
plete State  of  American  Supply  throughout  France. 
Every  twenty-four  hours  he  receives  a  report  of  ra- 
tions, fuel  and  forage  on  hand  at  all  our  Depots.  If 
there  is  no  sugar,  for  example,  at  the  Advance  Depots 
he  knows  that  there  is  lots  of  it  at  the  Base  or  Inter- 
mediate establishments.  He  can  have  a  special  train 
made  up  and  prevent  a  sweetless  day  at  the  front. 
No  wonder  he  lives  with  his  job. 


i68  S.  O.  S. 

When  you  reach  the  Railhead  you  are  in  the  Zone 
of  the  Armies.  You  have  gone  as  far  as  the  standard 
gauge  railroad  dares  to  go.  You  are  up  where  men 
wear  steel  helmets  and  are  required  to  keep  their  gas 
masks  accessible.  There  is  the  usual  insurance 
against  emergency  for  every  Railhead  carries  three 
days'  supplies  in  reserve  and  also  a  stock  of  under  and 
outer  clothing  for  five  thousand  men  to  renew  the 
wear  and  tear  of  actual  fighting  and  gas  casualties. 
The  moment  a  man  is  gassed  his  clothing  is  removed 
and  destroyed.  The  underclothing  is  for  use  at  the 
Bathing  and  Deverminising  establishments.  Just  as 
soon  as  men  come  out  of  the  trenches  they  are  re- 
quired to  bathe.  Their  clothes  are  fumigated — the 
"cooties"  are  no  respecters  of  persons — and  their 
underwear  sent  back  to  a  Salvage  Depot. 

From  Railhead  the  supplies  are  shipped  by  motor 
trucks  or  light  railways  to  the  Refilling  Point  which 
is  the  last  food  frontier.  The  boom  of  guns  is  now 
heard  and  the  nights  are  often  made  hideous  by  air 
raiders.  More  than  one  Refilling  Point  has  lost  its 
entire  stock  in  trade  by  shell  explosion.  Work  never 
ceases  for  most  of  the  road  traffic  up  here  must  be 
under  the  friendly  cover  of  night.  Although  exposed 
to  all  these  hazards  the  Refilling  Point  maintains  an 
adequate  system  of  office  records  and  a  scrutiny  which 
includes  an  inspection  of  the  fresh  beef  that  comes 
in  every  day. 

There  are  no  frills  in  this  much-menaced  Army 
Retail  Store.  Its  customers  are  hungry  soldiers 
whose  minds  are  mainly  on  two  things:  food  and 


THE  CITIES  OF  SUPPLY  169 

fighting.  They  brook  no  delay.  Every  morning 
Non-commissioned  officers  arrive  with  Ration  Re- 
turns made  out  by  the  Subsistence  officers  of  their 
units  and  which  are  the  orders  for  the  next  day's  sup- 
plies. These  supplies  are  loaded  on  light  railways  if 
the  country  is  not  too  much  exposed  to  shell-fire,  or 
on  three-ton  motor  trucks.  Where  food  is  furnished 
to  men  actually  engaged  in  combat  it  is  conveyed  to 
them  in  that  ancient  army  standby,  the  mule-drawn 
wagon.  These  vehicles  deliver  their  freight  to  the 
Supply  or  Mess  Sergeants  at  the  "dumps"  in  the 
field,  who  hand  them  over  to  the  cooks. 

Even  within  sight  of  No  Man's  Land  there  is  the 
inevitable  precaution  against  hunger  and  hardship 
which  marks  the  whole  American  Supply  Service.  It 
is  embodied  in  the  Reserve  Ration  of  canned  meat, 
hard  bread,  essence  of  coffee,  sugar  and  chocolate, 
packed  in  gas-proof  tin  containers  and  which  are  kept 
constantly  in  the  trenches.  They  are  only  consumed 
in  a  grave  emergency  such  as  a  break-down  in  food 
supply  in  the  rear  and  by  order  of  the  Commanding 
Officer.  These  containers  hold  twenty-five  rations 
each  and  are  so  hermetically  sealed  that  I  have  seen 
them  floating  around  in  water.  They  are  the  prop- 
erty of  the  trenches  and  must  not  be  removed. 

At  the  Refilling  Point  you  encounter  a  striking  illus- 
tration of  American  Supply  resource.  Wherever  a 
considerable  body  of  our  t-oops  is  stationed  you  find 
a  Sales  and  Commissary  Store  where  the  men  can 
buy  little  luxuries  such  as  candy,  tooth  brushes  and 
paste,  shaving  sticks,  cigars  and  razor  blades  at  cost. 


170  S.  O.  S. 

When  men  are  in  the  trenches  or  in  the  lines  imme- 
diately behind,  they  can  not  go  to  these  Stores.  In 
order  to  supply  their  wants  the  Store  goes  to  them 
in  the  shape  of  a  Travelling  Commissary  which  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  an  old-time  pedlar's  outfit 
inhabiting  a  five-ton  motor  truck.  At  dawn  this  shop 
on  wheels  stocks  up  its  shelves  and  chugs  down  the 
road  often  under  shell-fire  and  does  business  not  only 
within  sound  of  the  guns  but  frequently  within  gun- 
shot. It  represents  the  final  word  in  army  con- 
venience. 

You  have  now  followed  the  doughboys'  food  from 
ship  to  stomach.  The  only  American  soldier  in  France 
who  went  unfed  was  a  dead  one. 


VII — Detroit  in  France 


IN  former  wars  the  Constitution  followed  the  Flag. 
Now  the  automobile  is  hot  on  the  heels  of  the 
standard-bearer  and  sometimes  forges  ahead. 
The  stupendous  proportions  of  the  great  European 
struggle,  no  matter  from  what  angle  you  observe 
them,  have  been  made  possible  by  motor  equipment. 
Without  the  gasolene-propelled  vehicle  the  fighting 
hosts  could  not  be  adequately  supplied  or  equipped. 
Likewise  gains  could  not  be  swiftly  consolidated;  huge 
howitzers  would  be  as  immobile  as  fortress  guns; 
quick  deployment  of  reserves  out  of  the  question.  In 
short,  Mechanical  Transport  is  one  of  the  vital  war 
agencies.  With  the  possible  exception  of  Subsistence 
nothing  is  more  essential  to  the  grim  game. 

When  I  approached  the  motor  domain  of  our 
army  abroad  in  my  investigation  of  the  Services  of 
Supply  of  which  it  is  part,  I  felt  that  here,  as  in  no 
other  branch,  would  I  find  the  complete  dramatisation 
of  American  productive  and  organising  genius.  The 
nation  that  had  standardised  the  low-priced  car  and 
made  quantity  output  of  automobiles  so  automatic  as 
to  become  an  incidental  event  in  the  larger  story  of 
its  industrial  development,  would  surely  give  War 
its  supreme  lesson  in  Motorisation.  Curiously 
enough  I  found  a  striking  repetition  of  Mechanical 

171 


172  S.  O.  S. 

Transport  history  in  the  war  activities  of  the  two 
English-speaking  nations. 

When  Britain  leaped  to  arms  almost  overnight  she 
had  no  regular  army  motor  units  of  consequence. 
The  War  Office  depended  for  the  provision  of  motor 
transport  in  the  event  of  the  mobilisation  of  an  Expe- 
ditionary Force  on  a  certain  number  of  subsidised 
trucks  already  in  use  in  civil  work  and  on  civilian 
chauffeurs  and  drivers.  Hence,  when  the  Empire 
rushed  to  the  relief  of  Belgium  it  only  had  this  more 
or  less  makeshift  equipment.  It  started  in  to  buy 
trucks  both  in  the  United  States  and  at  home  and  the 
result  was  an  infinite  variety  of  types  and  make. 
Here  began  the  outstanding  evil  in  army  motor  main- 
tenance, which  was — and  remains — the  need  of  tens 
of  thousands  of  different  kinds  of  spare  parts  and 
accessories  for  the  upkeep  of  this  Congress  of  Vehi- 
cles. Standardisation,  which  means  interchangeable 
parts,  was  out  of  the  question. 

Practically  the  same  thing  happened  when  America 
"came  in."  Despite  three  years  of  warning  and  with 
the  exception  of  the  experience  that  we  gained  in 
Mexico  and  during  mobilisation  on  the  border,  our 
army  was  unprepared  with  any  sort  of  sufficient  Motor 
Transport.  We  had  to  comb  out  the  available  sup- 
ply of  trucks  and  cars  and  the  result  was  that  the 
Mechanical  Transport  equipment  in  France  for  twelve 
months  after  we  entered  the  conflict  represented 
almost  every  known  available  product.  When  I  tell 
you  that  we  are  required  to  keep  57,000  different  non- 
interchangeable  spare  parts  in  stock  you  get  some 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  173 

idea  of  the  price  we  pay  for  unreadiness  in  motor 
equipment.  More  than  this,  we  must  constantly  main- 
tain 13,000  kinds  of  bolts,  nuts  and  screws,  which 
means  that  the  shelves  of  our  spare  part  store-rooms 
carry  a  total  of  70,000  separate  items.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  the  parts  for  the  comparatively  few  British, 
French  and  Italian  cars  that  we  use,  all  this  must 
be  brought  from  the  United  States. 

It  simply  means  that  with  Mechanical  Transport, 
as  with  practically  every  other  Service  of  Supply,  we 
had  to  begin  at  the  very  beginning  and  build  from 
the  ground  up.  In  the  face  of  these  handicaps,  and 
every  difficulty  that  lack  of  standardisation  imposes, 
our  fighting  subsistence  forces,  so  far  as  the  motor  is 
concerned,  have  been  able  to  carry  on  from  the  start. 
The  same  spirit  of  indomitable  endeavour  that  planted 
bridges,  reared  docks  and  made  cities  of  Supply  grow 
out  of  the  swamps,  has  found  incarnation  in  the 
American  Motor  World  that  has  arisen  overseas. 
It  not  only  operates  and  maintains  over  50,000  gaso- 
lene-driven vehicles  but  somewhere  in  that  war-torn 
land  you  can  find  a  dynamic  cross-section  of  Detroit 
which  builds  automobiles  from  raw  material  up  to 
the  finished  vehicle  on  wheels  ready  for  peaceful  per- 
formance or  combat  work.  The  story  of  the  Motor 
Transport  Corps — the  "M.T.C."  as  it  is  more  com- 
monly known — is  one  of  the  impressive  narratives  of 
American  war  participation. 

Let  us  go  back  a  bit.  When  General  Pershing 
dashed  into  Mexico  "to  capture  Villa  dead  or  alive*' 
the  biggest  problem  of  the  moment  was  to  supply  him 


174  S.  O.  S. 

because  his  food  had  to  be  carried  across  many  miles 
of  arid  country.  At  that  time  the  Chief  Quarter- 
master of  the  Southern  Department,  charged  with  the 
task  of  feeding  the  Pershing  Expedition,  was  our  old 
friend  Major  General  Harry  L.  Rogers,  the  present 
Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force  and  Quartermaster  General  to  the  whole  Army. 
He  said  to  himself :  "The  only  way  to  maintain  food 
communications  in  Mexico  is  with  motor-trucks." 
But  where  were  the  trucks  to  come  from? 

Like  England  we  had  talked  and  written  a  great 
deal  about  the  value  of  the  motor-truck  to  the  army 
yet  at  that  time  there  were  less  than  a  thousand  in 
the  whole  American  military  establishment  and  like 
the  army  they  were  scattered  throughout  the  United 
States  and  the  Philippines.  When  a  certain  American 
Major  General  wanted  a  car  for  use  on  a  long  inspec- 
tion trip  in  California  all  he  could  get  was  authority 
to  buy  a  "flivver" !  This  happened  on  March  i6th — 
less  than  three  weeks  before  we  entered  the  war. 

The  trouble  was  that  the  old  dyed-in-the-wool  regu- 
lar officer  confused  Horse  Transport  with  Mechanical 
Transport,  which  are  totally  different  propositions. 
With  the  horse  and  wagon  only  a  fixed  amount  of 
work  can  be  done  each  day.  With  a  mechanically 
driven  vehicle  there  is  no  such  restriction.  Normally 
motor  equipment  may  be  operated  the  greater  part 
of  the  twenty-four  hours.  It  becomes  merely  a  matter 
of  care  and  upkeep. 

In  the  vernacular  of  trade  General  Rogers — he  was 
then  only  a  Colonel — "sold"  the  idea  of  Mechanical 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  175 

Transport  to  the  War  Department.  Then,  as  now,  he 
was  determined  that  Pershing's  men  should  not  go 
unfed.  We  began  to  buy  trucks,  cars  and  tractors. 
They  were  shipped  down  to  El  Paso  by  Express,  so 
urgent  was  the  need.  We  had  to  buy  anywhere  and 
everywhere.  The  first  trains  of  trucks  that  went  out 
across  those  scorching  mesas  were  manned  by  civilian 
chauffeurs  in  charge  of  regular  officers.  These  offi- 
cers laid  the  foundations  of  our  overseas  motor  ma- 
chine out  of  the  experience  gained  in  those  blistering 
Texas  days.  Thus  our  whole  Motor  Transport  or- 
ganisation really  began  down  on  the  border.  No 
wonder  that  a  certain  well-known  truck  manufac- 
turer with  a  sense  of  humour  put  the  following  dedi- 
cation in  a  privately-printed  and  circulated  album  of 
photographic  views  showing  his  truck  trains  in  use 
in  the  Mexican  campaign: 

"To  Francisco  Villa  who  made  possible  the  begin- 
ning of  American  Motor  Transport  in  the  war  with 
Germany/* 

As  a  result  of  the  Mexican  experience  we  had 
about  2,400  trucks  on  April  ist,  1917.  The  personnel 
was  organised  in  Motor  Truck  Companies  of  75  men 
each.  These  Companies  formed  the  nucleus  of  the 
Mechanical  Transport  personnel  which  now  numbers 
nearly  10,000  men  in  France  alone  and  what  will  even- 
tually be  an  army  of  over  50,000.  The  moment  we 
hurled  the  gauntlet  at  the  foot  of  the  Kaiser  we  were 
confronted  with  the  need  of  adequate  mechanical 
transport  and  its  twin  problem  of  immediate  procure- 
ment. We  had  only  acquired  what  we  urgently 


176  S.  O.  S. 

needed,  but  thanks  to  Villa  we  had  the  germ  of  a 
service  which  now  began  to  expand. 

Among  the  veterans  of  the  Mexican  campaign  was 
the  then  Major  F.  H.  Pope — (he  is  now  Colonel) — 
a  young  West  Pointer,  stocky  of  build  and  determined 
of  purpose,  who  had  studied  motor  transport  in  the 
French  Army  Supply  School  in  1915.  He  was  in 
charge  of  one  of  the  largest  truck  trains  that  chugged 
into  Mexico  with  food  and  supplies  for  the  Pershing 
Expedition.  Realising  the  need  of  a  trained  person- 
nel for  the  army,  he  started  a  School  for  Chauffeurs 
at  San  Antonio  where  he  was  able  to  turn  out  a 
truck  driver  in  ten  days  in  what  was  facetiously  called 
a  "Get-trained-quick"  course.  Just  as  Pope  was  one 
of  the  pioneers  in  Texas  so  was  he  now  a  path-finder 
in  France.  Around  him  was  reared  the  structure  of 
our  Motor  Transport  Service  abroad.  This,  however, 
is  a  later  story. 

The  moment  we  went  to  war  the  Reserve  Officers 
began  to  pour  in.  Every  man  who  had  ever  sold  an 
automobile,  owned  one,  or  wanted  to  own  one,  had 
an  ambition  to  get  into  the  Motor  Transport  Service. 
Scores  of  these  men  at  once  became  Chauffeurs-In- 
structors and  were  shunted  off  to  the  cantonments 
where  they  started  schools.  The  so-called  Truck 
Master,  usually  a  sergeant  who  had  served  in  Mexico, 
built  up  the  Motor  organisations  in  these  camps. 
Those  seasoned  three  and  five-ton  trucks  that  had 
travelled  axle-deep  through  the  Mexican  sands  were 
commandeered  for  work  at  home  instead  of  being 
used  as  the  beginnings  of  the  motor  fleets  in  France. 


COLONEL  F.  H.  POPE 


COLONEL  H.  A.  HEGEMAN 


LIEUT.  COL.  M.  R.  WAINER 


COLONEL  H.  C.  SMITHER 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  177 

Our  first  Expeditionary  Force  sailed  in  June,  1917. 
It  had  to  have  motor  transport.  America  was  forced 
to  duplicate  England's  performance  and  begin  to  buy 
her  automobile  equipment  right  and  left  and  wherever 
she  could  lay  hands  on  a  truck  car  or  tractor.  Each 
Motor  Unit  started  to  purchase  on  its  own.  This  is 
why  every  known  make  of  any  capacity  is  represented 
to-day  among  the  50,000  odd  vehicles  that  we  have 
overseas. 

In  the  midst  of  that  whirlwind  of  buying,  however, 
we  did  not  lose  sight  of  the  need  of  a  standardised 
vehicle  and  there  began  an  attempt  at  standardisation, 
now  well  underway,  which  will  enable  America  to 
present  to  the  industrial  world  after  the  war  a  type 
of  truck  that  is  bound  to  be  a  tremendous  factor  in 
peace  just  as  it  is  rapidly  becoming  an  invaluable  aid 
to  war. 

By  a  curious  coincidence  General  Pershing's  needs 
were  responsible  for  the  organisation  of  a  Motor 
Transport  Service  in  the  army  at  home  and  they  also 
formed  the  basis  of  American  gasolene-driven  squad- 
rons abroad.  With  the  first  troops  in  France  came 
motors.  A  small  unit  known  as  Motor  Truck  Group 
Number  I  which  included  four  Truck  Companies  and 
a  mobile  machine  shop,  which  is  a  repair  outfit  on 
wheels,  arrived  with  the  first  Expeditionary  Force. 
As  the  weeks  passed  a  good  deal  of  mechanical  trans- 
portation began  to  come  in  from  the  United  States. 
Each  ship  brought  so-called  Casual  Chauffeur  Com- 
panies. A  casual,  whether  officer  or  enlisted  man,  is 
an  unassigned  soldier.  These  men  and  machines  re- 


178  S.  O.  S. 

mained  without  a  definite  head  until  September,  1917, 
when  the  Commander-in-Chief  sent  a  memorandum  to 
General  Rogers,  just  installed  as  Chief  Quartermaster, 
directing  that  all  Motor  Transport  be  placed  under  his 
direction.  The  Father  of  Mechanical  Transport  to 
the  American  Army  thus  became  sponsor  for  its  de- 
velopment in  the  World  War  and  on  a  scale  un- 
dreamed of  when  he  first  urged  motorisation  down 
at  Texas. 

Meanwhile  Colonel  F.  H.  Pope  had  arrived  in 
France.  General  Rogers  looked  about  for  a  tem- 
porary Head  of  the  infant  service.  His  choice  fell  on 
the  stocky  young  officer  who  had  sweated  on  those 
early  truck  trains  under  the  scorching  Mexican  sun. 
Pope  took  hold  at  once,  the  scattered  vehicles  and 
drivers  were  assembled  under  a  centralised  authority; 
Motor  Reception  Parks  were  established  at  the  Base 
ports,  and  "M.T."  came  into  being  as  a  full-fledged 
if  struggling  organisation. 

The  handicaps  which  attended  the  launching  of 
every  Service  of  Supply  abroad  took  up  their  abode 
with  Motor  Transport.  There  was  the  usual  short- 
age of  equipment  and  trained  personnel.  Colonel 
Pope  and  his  colleagues  began  to  buy  anything  they 
could  get  in  Europe  and  especially  in  England,  which 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  you  often  see  five-ton 
lorries  still  bearing  the  "W.D."  and  the  familiar  white 
arrow  that  proclaim  the  British  War  Office  origin, 
manned  by  doughboys  and  carrying  American  supplies. 
This  buying  in  Britain  did  three  things.  It  provided 
immediate  equipment,  saved  tonnage,  and  minimised 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  179 

the  spare  part  problem.  Profiting  by  this  experience 
we  are  now  using  Italian  cars  in  Italy.  It  pays  to 
use  the  car  of  the  country  because  equipment  can  be 
renewed  without  delay. 

As  soon  as  our  motor  engine  was  cranked  up  in 
France  the  difference  between  operation  there  and  in 
Mexico — the  only  other  place  where  American  equip- 
ment had  seen  active  service — became  apparent.  In 
Villa's  country  there  was  a  small  volume  of  business 
and  a  long  haul  with  no  fuel  or  repair  stations.  In 
France  it  was  just  the  reverse.  The  bulk  of  carry- 
ing was  tremendous,  the  distances  were  short,  and  by 
agreement  with  the  British  and  French  Motor  Services 
our  trucks  and  cars  could  obtain  fuel  and  repairs  prac- 
tically every  ten  or  twenty  miles  if  necessary.  This 
co-operative  effort  has  been  invaluable,  especially  in 
the  pioneer  days  when  our  Service  was  in  the  building. 

For  a  considerable  period  Motor  Transport  re- 
mained under  the  control  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster. 
It  grew  so  fast,  however,  that  it  was  made  a  separate 
Service  with  a  Director  in  Charge  and  became  part  of 
the  Service  of  Utilities,  which  was  subsequently  ex- 
panded into  the  present  Services  of  Supply.  This 
means  that  the  Capital  of  our  Motor  Empire  abroad 
is  in  that  historic  little  city  of  Tours,  the  nerve  centre 
of  Supply  and  Transport  for  the  whole  A.E.F.  In 
a  reorganisation  growing  out  of  a  swift  expansion 
Brigadier  General  M.  L.  Walker,  a  far-visioned  engi- 
neer of  ripe  army  experience,  became  Director  of  what 
is  now  officially  known  as  the  Motor  Transport  Corps. 
Colonel  Pope  was  installed  as  Deputy  Director.  From 


i8o  S.  O.  S. 

their  offices  radiates  the  control  of  the  American 
Motor  Machine  across  the  sea. 

If  you  have  read  the  preceding  chapters  in  this  book 
you  know  that  the  management  of  American  Busi- 
ness of  War  is  precisely  like  that  of  any  big  Corpora- 
tion that  is  scientifically  and  therefore  efficiently  con- 
ducted. Hence  the  Motor  Transport  Corps  is  thor- 
oughly charted  and  diagrammed.  The  scope  and 
function  of  every  branch  from  the  immense  Recep- 
tion Parks  at  the  ports  which  contain  thousands  of 
vehicles,  down  to  a  lonely  garage  on  the  highway  in 
charge  of  one  man,  are  on  paper.  Behind  the  Director 
hangs  a  huge  map  of  the  roads  of  France  showing 
the  truck  routes  from  sea  to  front  in  red ;  with  Recep- 
tion and  Service  Parks  in  blue;  with  A.E.F.  gasolene 
stations  indicated  by  white  flags  and  French  by 
yellow. 

The  whole  "M.T.C."  naturally  falls  into  two  sep- 
arate sections :  one  which  operates  in  the  domain  of  the 
Services  of  Supply  behind  the  lines;  the  other  which 
is  part  of  the  Combat  Armies  in  the  field.  By  fol- 
lowing the  equipment  from  the  time  it  arrives  in 
France  until  it  delivers  men,  food  and  ammunition  at 
the  firing  line  you  can  run  the  whole  range  and  see 
precisely  how  the  scheme  operates. 

Looking  at  the  general  plan  of  organisation  in  the 
S.O.S.  first  you  find  that  the  Director  of  the  Motor 
Transport  Corps  sits  as  President  of  the  concern, 
while  the  Deputy  Director  is  Vice  President  and  Gen- 
eral Manager.  The  six  principal  Divisions  are:  Ad- 
ministration, which  deals  with  office  management,  per- 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  181 

sonnel  and  statistics;  Procurement,  which  obtains 
equipment  and  supplies  and  deals  with  the  tonnage 
problem;  Maintenance,  which  has  the  colossal  job  of 
spare  part  renewal,  repairs  and  salvage;  Operations, 
which  distributes  all  machines  and  has  particular 
charge  of  the  truck  convoys;  Engineering,  which  pro- 
vides technical  advice  and  deals  with  standardisation; 
and  Plans  and  Projects,  which  anticipates  future  needs 
and  adapts  the  present  structure  to  whatever  emer- 
gency may  arise. 

Each  of  these  Divisions  has  its  own  chart  of  or- 
ganisation which,  after  the  free  and  easy  manner  of 
motor  life,  is  called  the  "Keep  Your  Eye  on  the  Ball 
Chart"  because  the  unuttered  injunction  everywhere  in 
this  highly-charged  branch  of  army  work  is  "Step 
Lively."  Every  man  in  the  Motor  Transport  Service 
knows  just  what  is  required  of  him  because,  from 
Director  down  to  the  keeper  of  that  lonely  way-side 
garage,  he  has  his  job  concretely  before  him  on  the 
wall.  He  can  never  say:  "I  didn't  know  that  this 
was  part  of  my  work."  The  Motor  Transport  Ser- 
vice is  excuse-proof. 

We  cannot  make  our  motor  trip  from  sea  to  front 
without  first  knowing  how  our  car  got  to  France. 
We  must  begin  therefore  with  the  Source  of  Supply, 
which  is,  in  the  main,  the  chain  of  factories  in  the 
United  States  whose  lathes  and  forges  rattle  and  clang 
day  and  night  to  meet  the  incessant  demands  of 
Army  Motor  Transport.  The  Bridge  of  Ships  across 
the  sea  has  its  prototype  on  land  in  the  Bridge  of 


182  S.  O.  S. 

Trucks  that  must  carry  men  and  supplies  across  the 
fertile  fields  of  France. 

Washington,  which  is  the  Procurement  Centre,  must 
know  just  what  equipment  to  ship  abroad.  France 
therefore  periodically  prepares  the  Master  Chart  of 
Motor  Requirements.  Its  duplicate  hangs  at  Tours. 
When  you  see  these  immense  sheets — they  are  six 
feet  high — you  begin  to  realise  just  what  it  means 
to  keep  our  Motor  Empire  going.  The  Truck  Sheet 
alone  calls  for  119  different  kinds  of  trucks,  tenders, 
trailers,  carts  and  ambulances.  This  immense  variety 
naturally  results  from  the  fact  that  every  Service  in 
France  draws  its  equipment  from  the  "M.T.C." 
There  must  be  special  trucks  and  trailers  for  the  Air 
Service;  huge  steel-wheeled  carriers  for  Forestry 
Service;  portable  auto  rock  crushers;  trucks  for  tar 
distributing;  trailers  for  heating  oil  and  water;  trucks 
for  balloon  winches;  trailers  with  portable  cranes; 
gasolene  tank  trucks,  kitchen  trail-mobiles;  machine 
gun  cars;  dental  trucks  which  are  travelling  dental 
laboratories  with  every  fixture  of  a  well-equipped  den- 
tist office  in  New  York  or  Philadelphia;  ammunition 
trucks;  radio  trucks  on  which  the  field  wireless  out- 
fits are  mounted ;  fire  apparatus  trucks,  because  every 
Base  and  Supply  Depot  has  its  completely  equipped 
motorised  Fire  Department;  mobile  machine  shops; 
and  photographic  trailers  on  which  the  Air  Service 
builds  its  itinerant  studios.  I  could  continue  the  list 
for  a  good  while.  Practically  every  Service  in 
France  has  some  special  kind  of  motor  equipment 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  183 

which  must  be  described  down  to  the  last  screw  in  a 
specification  which  goes  to  Washington. 

All  motor  equipment  for  France  must  be  ordered 
not  less  than  three  and  usually  four  months  ahead; 
first  because  it  takes  time  for  manufacture,  and  sec- 
ond because  of  the  delays  and  hazards  of  sea  trans- 
port. This  means  that  the  Demands  up  to  January 
ist,  1919,  are  already  long  on  file  in  the  office  of  the 
Acting  Quartermaster  General  in  Washington  and  the 
orders  are  being  filled  in  scores  of  motor  plants  from 
Detroit  south. 

These  Motor  Transport  army  requirements  from 
motor  cycles  up  to  specially  constructed  five-ton  trucks 
are  based  on  army  needs  as  shown  by  organisations 
in  France,  by  advance  notice  of  troop  sailings,  and 
wear  and  tear  on  equipment  in  use  and  the  necessity 
of  keeping  reserve  stocks.  With  motor  equipment 
as  with  food  and  all  other  supplies,  there  must  be  a 
large  available  surplus  to  meet  losses  due  to  enemy 
action,  accidents  or  the  terrific  and  incessant  usage. 
A  chart,  which  is  a  marvel  of  detail,  sets  forth  the 
precise  situation  in  France.  The  equipment  in  use  or 
in  Reception  and  Reserve  Parks  is  in  black,  while  the 
needs  of  the  A.E.F.  are  indicated  in  red.  This  is 
the  so-called  Status  of  Motor  Vehicles  in  France. 

Motor  Transport  gets  an  allotment  of  tonnage  from 
the  United  States  every  month  just  like  the  Quarter- 
master Corps  or  the  Air  Service.  If  this  allotment 
is  for  100,000  tons  the  Procurement  Division  must 
make  up  its  own  Priority  Schedule  which  indicates 
whether  trucks  or  passenger  cars  have  the  bulk  of  the 


184  S.  O.  S. 

space.  These  requirements  are  reduced  to  weight  and 
cubic  tons  and  then  transmitted  to  the  Gi  Section  of 
the  General  Staff  which  forwards  them  to  Washing- 
ton. In  the  Acting  Quartermaster  General's  office  in 
Washington  is  a  Motor  Transport  Bureau  which 
places  contracts  with  the  manufacturers. 

As  soon  as  a  truck  or  car  reaches  a  port  in  France 
it  is  caught  up  in  a  control  which  keeps  a  continuous 
check  on  it  during  the  whole  period  of  service  and 
until  it  goes  into  the  scrap-heap.  Even  then  the  ma- 
terial is  salvaged  and  becomes  part  of  the  recorded 
structure  of  a  new  vehicle  or  a  retrieved  part.  At 
each  port  that  we  use  you  find  a  so-called  Motor  Re- 
ception Park,  which  means  precisely  what  the  name 
implies.  Here  you  find  every  kind  of  mechanical 
transport.  Each  Park  has  a  complete  organisation  in 
charge  of  the  Commanding  Officer  who  has  the  usual 
Administrative  and  Service  Divisions  under  him. 
Administration  deals  with  office  management,  person- 
nel, records,  barracks  for  the  hundreds  of  casuals  who 
come  in  constantly  from  America.  In  the  Service 
Branch  you  find  inspection,  park  problems,  supplies, 
convoying,  maintenance  and  repair.  In  other  words, 
each  of  these  Parks — and  the  same  thing  obtains  in 
all  the  other  kinds  of  Parks  which  you  will  find  as 
you  go  up  the  line — is  a  completely  equipped  self-con- 
tained Service,  able  to  set  up,  repair  and  maintain  any 
kind  of  motor  transport.  Here  is  where  the  value  of 
a  standardised  system  comes  in. 

Motor  Transport  arrives  in  France  in  two  ways: 
One  portion  is  shipped  on  its  own  wheels,  which 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  185 

means  that  it  is  lifted  by  cranes  straight  from  the 
deck  of  a  ship  on  which  it  travels.  In  this  case  the 
vehicles  are  camouflaged  in  harmony  with  the  camou- 
flage of  the  ship.  Hence  you  frequently  see  at  the 
ports  a  truck  body  that  looks  as  if  it  were  a  wiggly 
germ  chart,  while  the  wheels  are  a  sedate  and  sober 
grey.  Such  vehicles  are  of  course  repainted  the  mo- 
ment they  get  to  the  Reception  Park. 

Trucks  and  cars  are  also  shipped  crated  and  unas- 
sembled. At  some  ports  the  assembling  is  done  al- 
most within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  docks  and  in  the 
open  air,  by  a  process  that  reminds  you  of  the  system 
in  a  famous  Detroit  quantity  output  factory.  The 
axles  are  put  on  a  skidway  and  started  down  by 
gravity.  In  rapid  succession  each  part  is  added  until 
it  rolls  away  on  its  own  wheels.  At  one  place  fifty 
five-ton  trucks  were  assembled  in  this  way  in  nine 
hours. 

As  soon  as  trucks  or  cars  are  ready  to  be  moved 
they  are  hitched  together  in  trains  and  hauled  out  to 
the  Reception  Park  which  is  usually  nearby.  The 
progress  of  a  new  vehicle  from  the  time  it  is  unloaded 
or  set  up  until  issued  to  a  unit  must  be,  to  quote  the 
official  instructions:  "A  continuous  How  in  a  given 
direction"  This  means  that  the  equipment  never 
doubles  on  its  tracks  and  there  is  no  lost  motion.  Ar- 
riving at  the  Park  it  goes  into  the  Repair  Shop  for 
a  thorough  overhauling  and  repainting,  after  which 
it  is  sent  to  the  Issue  Section  of  the  Park  where  it 
remains  until  assigned.  Meanwhile  it  is  maintained 
in  perfect  condition;  the  motor  is  started  up  every 


i86  S.  O.  S. 

day;  when  the  order  comes  to  move  it  can  be  started 
off  without  a  moment's  delay. 

Most  of  these  Reception  Parks,  like  our  Supply 
Cities,  have  risen  overnight.  One  week  a  stretch  of 
flats  or  swamp  offends  the  eye;  the  next  it  is  covered 
with  acres  of  trucks  and  cars  whose  freshly  painted 
bodies  gleam  in  the  sunlight.  Office  buildings,  bar- 
racks and  kitchens  have  also  sprung  up  like  magic. 
It  is  all  part  of  the  many-sided  miracle  of  America 
in  France.  These  Parks  are  usually  in  charge  of  Re- 
serve Officers  who  have  left  motor  factories  or  sales- 
rooms to  do  their  bit  in  the  army.  Typical  of  these 
men  is  the  Commanding  Officer  at  the  largest  Base 
Park— at  St.  Nazaire— who  is  Lieut.-Col.  Will  H. 
Brown,  one  of  the  founders  of  a  mighty  automobile 
institution  in  the  Middle  West;  who  served  a  term 
as  State  Senator  in  Indiana  and  who  dropped  every- 
thing to  go  to  France  at  the  outbreak  of  war. 
Throughout  the  whole  "M.T.C."  you  find  this  calibre 
of  man  who  has  met  the  emergency  with  the  same 
courage  and  resource  with  which  armed  attack  is  faced 
at  the  front. 

Here  is  a  case  in  point :  Last  winter  when  the  Sec- 
ond Reception  Park  was  in  process  of  organisation  a 
hurry-up  requisition  came  from  our  little  army  up  in 
storm-ridden  Northern  France.  It  read:  "Send  two 
truck  trains  at  once."  In  charge  of  this  Park  was 
Major  C.  M.  El  well,  a  rangy,  sinewy  Middle  West- 
erner who  had  been  a  prize  automobile  salesman.  He 
had  the  chasses  but  no  bodies.  He  called  his  small 
force  together  and  said:  "The  army  must  have  those 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  187 

trucks.  We  have  no  bodies.  Therefore  we  must 
build  them."  Day  and  night  his  men,  who  included 
collegians  fresh  from  their  studies,  literally  worked 
like  beavers.  Fortunately  there  were  three  carpenters 
among  them.  They  improvised  hay-wagon  bodies 
and  in  less  than  a  week  forty  trucks  were  on  the  way 
to  the  front. 

As  soon  as  a  vehicle  arrives  at  the  Reception  Park 
it  receives  its  first  dose  of  routine.  Like  a  convict — 
and  no  galley  slave  ever  worked  harder  than  our 
Motor  Transport  in  France — it  gets  a  number  and 
henceforth  it  is  known  only  by  that  numeral,  which  is 
the  so-called  "U.S.  Number."  This  rule  applies  to 
the  Commander-in-Chief  s  limousine  with  the  same 
force  as  to  a  "flivver."  The  numbering  system  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  Service.  The  first  numeral  always 
indicates  the  Type  of  Car.  All  our  motor  vehicles 
are  classified  according  to  type.  Passenger  cars,  re- 
gardless of  size  or  body,  are  Type  I ;  light  delivery 
trucks  of  one-ton  or  less  are  Type  2 ;  three  and  four- 
ton  trucks  are  Type  4;  five-ton  trucks  and  over  are 
Type  5;  motor  cycles  with  or  without  side-cars  are 
Type  6;  caterpillars  which  haul  the  heavy  guns  are 
Type  9;  even  the  kitchen  trailers  have  a  designation 
which  is  Type  10. 

The  United  States  numbers  are  arranged  so  as  to 
indicate  the  type.  For  example,  the  official  registra- 
tion number  of  a  passenger  car  will  always  begin  with 
i ;  the  United  States  number  of  a  five-ton  truck  would 
begin  with  5  and  so  on.  Thus  you  find  that  the  first 
registered  passenger  car  in  the  A.E.F.  is  n,  while  the 


188  S.  O.  S. 

first  registered  five-ton  truck  is  51.  If  you  should  see 
a  truck  on  the  road  bearing  the  United  States  number 
5125  you  will  at  once  know  that  it  is  a  five-ton  truck. 
Blocks  of  registration  numbers  are  periodically  for- 
warded by  the  Director  of  the  "M.T.C."  to  the  Recep- 
tion Park  for  issue  to  the  incoming  vehicles.  This 
registration  is  made  by  a  clerk  who  has  a  completely 
equipped  office,  including  typewriter  and  card  index, 
in  the  body  of  a  five-ton  truck  which  is  located  in 
many  instances  out  in  the  open  air  and  in  the  midst 
of  the  Reception  Park. 

Immediately  after  registration,  all  the  equipment 
that  comes  with  the  vehicle  is  taken  off  and  stored  in 
a  reservoir  of  accessories.  This  procedure  is  just  the 
opposite  of  the  British  method  which  assigns  a  driver, 
helper  and  all  essential  tools  to  a  truck  when  it  is 
forwarded  to  France.  These  two  men  and  the  initial 
equipment  remain  with  the  vehicle  until  it  is  worn  out 
or  destroyed,  as  they  are  put  out  of  commission.  Our 
personnel  on  the  other  hand  is  assigned  from  the  Pools 
of  Casuals  which  are  to  be  found  at  every  Park. 

Every  truck  has  a  Log  Book  which  must  be  kept  up 
to  date  by  the  driver.  It  therefore  becomes  the 
biography  of  this  particular  piece  of  equipment.  The 
title  of  the  volume  is  the  U.S.  Number.  It  is  a 
complete  record  of  all  transfers,  repairs,  and  supplies. 
The  tabulated  information  in  these  books  is  of  great 
value  to  the  Statisticians  of  the  Corps.  In  addition 
it  is  a  form  of  publicity  which  prevents  waste  of 
gasolene  and  spare  parts. 

The  U.S.  Number  is  only  one  detail  of  the  control 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  189 

and  supervision  which  now  take  firm  hold  of  the  trans- 
port. As  soon  as  the  registration  number  (it  is  first 
written  on  a  red  card  which  is  tied  to  the  steering 
wheel  and  afterwards  stencilled  in  white  paint  on  the 
sides  and  backs  of  the  vehicles),  a  so-called  Registra- 
tion Card  is  made  out  in  duplicate  which  is  the  be- 
ginning of  the  permanent  history  of  the  car.  There 
is  a  coloured  card  for  each  type  of  vehicle.  For 
trucks  it  is  white;  for  touring-cars  and  ambulances, 
yellow;  for  motor-cycles,  brown.  These  cards  con- 
tain the  technical  record  of  the  vehicle  and  together 
they  form  the  up-to-the-minute  Census  of  Motor 
Transport  in  France.  They  contain  the  U.S.  Number, 
type,  model,  make,  capacity  in  load,  gas  and  oil  tank, 
serial  number,  motor  number,  and  kind  of  ignition 
and  lighting  systems.  There  is  also  a  complete  rec- 
ord of  the  tires  including  make,  size  in  front  and  rear 
and  whether  pressed  on  or  demountable.  The  date 
and  place  of  arrival  are  also  recorded.  All  this  is 
on  one  half  of  the  face  of  the  card. 

The  other  half  is  devoted  to  the  history  of  the 
vehicle.  If  a  truck  is  transferred  twenty  times  in 
the  course  of  six  months  the  date  and  place  of  transfer 
and  incidental  remarks  are  chronicled.  If  you  want 
to  know  the  location  and  previous  service  of  any  piece 
of  mechanical  transport  in  the  A.E.F.  you  can  get  it 
at  a  glance  from  the  duplicate  file  of  these  Registra- 
tion Cards — the  Organisation  File  as  it  is  termed — 
kept  in  the  office  of  the  Director  General  of  the 
"M.T.C."  at  Tours. 

Here  is  the  way  it  works :  I  once  asked  Colonel  Pope 


190  S.  O.  S. 

the  location  of  what  I  thought  was  the  hypothetical 
number  of  a  five-ton  truck.  He  wrote  the  number  on 
a  sheet  of  paper,  sent  for  a  messenger  and  asked  him 
to  get  the  record  of  that  number.  In  less  than  five 
minutes  the  messenger  returned  with  a  typewritten 
sheet  which  stated  that  the  five-ton  truck  bearing  this 
actual  number  had  arrived  in  France  on  June  ist  at 
Blank  port;  that  it  had  been  assigned  first  to  a  field 
bakery  at  X ;  then  to  the  Motor  Corps  at  the  In- 
termediate Supply  Depot;  later  it  was  reassigned  to 
Y.  Division,  and  at  that  particular  moment  was  in 
service  in  the  Toul  sector  with  the  Z.  Division. 
Such  is  the  check  that  is  kept  upon  everything  on 
wheels  that  uses  a  gasolene  engine  in  France.  You 
can  trace  a  motor-cycle,  a  runabout  or  a  kitchen 
trailer  with  the  same  ease  and  accuracy. 

This  is  why  the  Director  of  Mechanical  Transport 
is  enabled  to  keep  his  finger  constantly  on  the  whole 
overseas  situation.  Every  morning  General  Walker 
finds  on  his  desk  the  typewritten  Daily  Schedule  of 
Mechanical  Transport  which  gives  equipment  arrival 
at  ports  the  day  before ;  the  stocks  at  Parks ;  the  total 
number  of  vehicles  ordered  for  service  at  the  front 
and  at  the  rear;  the  state  of  spare  parts  and  the  state 
of  personnel.  It  is  just  one  of  the  many  similar 
charts  in  use  in  the  various  Services  of  Supply  that 
express  scientific  business  management  at  its  best. 
This  is  only  possible  because  the  first  link  in  the  chain 
of  Motor  Supply  was  forged  right  at  the  Reception 
Park. 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  191 

By  this  time  you  realise  that  the  Reception  Park 
is  an  important  institution.  It  not  only  receives, 
marks  and  concentrates  equipment  but  by  the  nature 
of  its  location  is  the  great  Centre  of  Assignment. 
When  a  Division  at  the  front,  a  Supply  Depot,  or  a 
Headquarters  anywhere  wants  a  truck  or  a  passenger 
car  it  makes  a  requisition  on  the  Director  at  Tours. 
He  knows  from  his  Daily  Schedule  and  also  from  a 
Daily  Report  of  Unassigned  Motor  Vehicles  at  Bases 
and  Reserve  Parks  just  what  stock  he  has  on  hand. 
This  stock  I  might  add  is  known  as  a  Liquid  Inven- 
tory. Through  the  Assignment  Bureau  he  orders 
Reception  Park  tp  send  the  equipment  desired.  At 
the  same  time  the  unit  to  which  it  is  assigned  is  in- 
formed. This  enables  consignor  and  consignee  to 
get  together  and  know  where  they  are.  There  is  a 
constant  flow  of  trucks  and  cars  from  this  Liquid 
Supply.  Hence  its  name. 

Wherever  you  turn  in  an  examination  of  the  Motor 
Transport  Corps  you  find  some  illuminating  example 
of  co-operation  that  will  have  its  large  lesson  after 
the  war.  At  the  Reception  Parks,  for  instance,  you 
discover  the  so-called  Pooling  System — a  distinctive 
American  contribution  to  war  transport  standardisa- 
tion. It  grew  out  of  the  basic  law  of  operating  effi- 
ciency in  motor  transport  which  is  that  a  vehicle  must 
be  worked  to  capacity  both  as  to  time  and  load. 
Every  minute  that  the  road  wheels  of  a  truck  are  idle 
is  a  dead  loss.  Every  pound  under  a  capacity  load  is 
likewise  a  dead  loss.  Certain  fundamental  operating 
rules  deduced  from  these  axioms  are  the  cardinal 


192  S.  O.  S. 

principles  under  which  our  whole  Army  Transport 
Service  works.     They  are: 

First :  Avoid  an  empty  haul.  Return  loads  should 
be  provided  for  and  vehicles  should  be  parked  so  that 
the  least  possible  time  will  be  lost  going  to  or  coming 
from  work,  and  so  that  as  small  a  distance  as  possible 
will  be  travelled  with  no  load. 

Second:  Load  vehicles  to  capacity.  Do  not  use  a 
five-ton  vehicle  to  carry  a  two-ton  load.  Use  a  ve- 
hicle of  appropriate  tonnage. 

Third:  Do  not  use  two  vehicles  to  do  the  work 
that  one  vehicle  can  do  within  the  required  time  limit. 
Work  one  vehicle  ten  hours  rather  than  two  vehicles 
five  hours. 

Fourth:  Reduce  to  a  minimum  the  time  required 
in  the  loading  and  unloading  operations  and  the  extra 
time  required  for  the  necessary  upkeep  and  supply 
operations  to  the  vehicle. 

Fifth:  Keep  the  vehicle  in  constant  mechanical 
serviceability  by  constant  inspection  and  care  of  the 
mechanism. 

As  a  result  our  trucks  and  cars  are  pooled  wherever 
possible,  which  means  that  at  Base  Ports,  Supply  De- 
pots, and  with  the  armies  in  the  field  there  is  always 
a  central  reserve  of  equipment  instantly  available.  It 
has  eliminated  the  abuse  of  property,  useless  wear  and 
tear,  and  enables  all  vehicles  to  be  used  to  the  fullest 
possible  extent.  The  case  of  passenger  cars  will  illus- 
trate. With  the  exception  of  the  highest  ranking 
officers  no  officer  has  his  own  car.  All  cars  are  in  a 
pool  which  is  operated  precisely  like  a  taxi-cab  service 
with  the  exception  that  there  is  no  charge  for  riding 
and  the  chauffeurs  get  no  tips.  When  a  car  is  issued 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  193 

the  driver  is  given  a  blank  form  which  must  be  filled 
out  with  the  name  of  the  passenger,  the  car,  time  used, 
and  the  destination.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  trip 
the  officer  and  civilian  using  this  car  must  sign  this 
slip  which  testifies  that  the  "transportation  was  used 
for  official  business  only."  This  procedure  makes 
joy  riding  impossible.  A  similar  taxi-cab  system  for 
trucks  is  in  operation  at  all  Depots.  No  Branch  of 
the  Service  can  get  a  truck  without  giving  a  good 
reason. 

One  invaluable  result  of  this  co-operative  system  is 
the  Army  Truck  Convoy  which  is  another  distinctive 
American  feature.  I  can  best  explain  it  with  a  con- 
crete example.  When  a  requisition  is  made  on  a 
Reception  Park  for  a  Divisional  truck  train,  which  is 
1 88  trucks,  they  would,  in  ordinary  circumstances, 
proceed  without  cargo  to  their  accredited  destination 
which  may  be  twenty  or  one  hundred  miles  away. 
Every  pound  of  load-carrying  capacity  is  practically 
lost.  With  the  Truck  Convoy,  however,  every  train 
that  goes  up  carries  freight.  On  land  as  on  sea,  the 
A.E.F.  is  constantly  up  against  the  tonnage  problem. 
Supplies  are  piling  up  at  the  ports  at  the  rate  of  tens 
of  thousands  of  tons  a  day.  Every  freight  car — 
American,  French  and  the  British  wagons  that  we  use 
— works  to  the  fullest  possible  capacity.  Every  effort 
must  be  made  to  relieve  this  tonnage  tension.  Hence 
these  trains  of  trucks  that  are  constantly  winding 
along  the  French  roads  have  become  great  factors  as 
freight  carriers. 

As  soon  as  a  truck  train,  whether  five  vehicles  or 


194  S.  O.  S. 

fifty,  is  requisitioned  the  Commanding  Officer  at  the 
Reception  Park  which  is  always  at  a  Base  Port  in- 
forms the  Superintendent  of  the  Army  Transport  Ser- 
vice that  a  convoy  is  available.  Instantly  freight  is 
assigned  to  it.  Meanwhile  each  truck  is  manned  and 
equipped;  the  cargo  is  then  put  aboard,  a  so-called 
Pilot  who  knows  all  the  truck  routes  is  placed  in  com- 
mand, the  convoy  gets  a  number  by  which  it  is  known 
until  it  gets  to  its  station,  and  the  caravan  moves  off. 
Wherever  possible  the  freight  is  consigned  to  the  unit 
which  is  receiving  the  train.  If  this  is  impossible  it 
goes  to  some  intermediate  point  where  the  trucks  are 
again  loaded  for  a  second  lap  of  their  carrying  jour- 
ney. No  time  is  lost  because  the  Pilot  wires  ahead 
and  a  second  relay  of  freight,  with  labour  necessary 
to  load,  is  ready  when  he  arrives.  Every  night  the 
Convoy  reports  its  whereabouts  to  Tours.  This  is 
done  to  permit  M.T.  Headquarters  to  divert  the  train 
if  necessary.  So  complete  is  the  Truck  Convoy  Sys- 
tem that  there  is  a  special  book  prepared  for  its 
guidance.  It  gives  maps  showing  routes  from  the  sea 
to  every  point  of  importance  that  we  occupy  in  France; 
it  shows  the  location  of  gasolene  and  repair  stations; 
it  gives  concrete  directions  how  to  pack  vehicles  so  as 
to  use  every  cubic  inch  of  space.  More  than  once  I 
have  encountered  these  trains  winding  along  the  high- 
ways bearing  their  burden  of  freight. 

Although  its  functions  are  many-sided  the  Recep- 
tion Park  merely  represents  the  first  stage  in  the  over- 
seas career  of  Mechanical  Transport.  Equipment  is 
not  only  subject  to  a  terrific  wear  and  tear  but  also 


DETROIT  IN  FRANCE  195 

to  the  hazards  of  enemy  action.  It  must  be  renewed 
and  sometimes  rebuilt.  Hence  the  Highways  of  Sup- 
ply and  Combat  are  punctuated  with  a  succession  of 
Depots  known  as  Service,  Overhaul,  and  Reconstruc- 
tion Park.  Each  has  its  specific  work ;  together  they 
keep  the  Motor  Machine  fuelled  and  going. 

A  Service  Park  may  be  installed  with  combat 
troops  or  behind  the  lines.  In  the  field  it  consists  of 
mobile  workships  which  are  motor  hospitals  on  wheels 
to  which  the  lame,  the  halt  and  sometimes  the  decrepit 
vehicles  come  under  their  own  power  for  repair. 
Often  these  Parks  are  set  up  in  a  wheat-field  or  along- 
side an  orchard  with  little  French  children  as  inter- 
ested spectators.  Such  stations  maintain  a  wrecking 
car  and  crew  who  bring  in  disabled  and  wrecked 
vehicles  and  arrange  for  evacuating  them  to  the  Over- 
haul or  Reconstruction  Parks  for  overhaul  if  neces- 
sary. In  the  Base  and  Intermediate  Sections  these 
Service  Parks  are  installed  in  permanent  structures. 
Whether  mobile  or  immobile  they  carry  a  limited 
stock  of  spare  parts,  tires,  and  in  some  instances  main- 
tain a  limited  Replacement  Section  of  Motor  Vehicles 
in  order  to  substitute  when  necessary  a  serviceable 
motor  vehicle  for  an  unserviceable  vehicle  when  sent 
in  for  repairs. 

The  Overhaul  Park,  which  is  usually  housed  in  a 
permanent  structure,  serves  two  main  purposes :  it  re- 
pairs and  overhauls  motor  vehicles  and  parts  that  do 
not  need  rebuilding  and  also  serves  as  Advance  Supply 
Depots  for  supplies,  material,  parts  and  equipment. 
Every  piece  of  mechanical  transport  used  by  the 


196  s.  a  s. 

American  Expeditionary  Force  must  be  overhauled 
periodically.     It  is  done  at  the  Overhaul  Park. 

At  the  Reconstruction  Park  you  find  the  real  casual- 
ties of  transport.  Here  is  assembled  the  maimed  and 
battle-scarred  equipment  brought  down  by  rail  for 
renewal  or  rebuilding.  You  see  motor-cycles  that 
are  merely  twisted  bundles  of  steel;  passenger  cars 
riddled  with  holes;  trucks  that  are  wire-gashed  and 
shrapnel-torn.  Crimsoning  these  vehicles  is  the  good 
red  blood  of  the  American  doughboys  who  stuck  to 
steering-wheel  until  death  released  their  grip.  All 
the  tragedy  of  war  is  written  in  these  mute  symbols 
of  service  and  sacrifice.  The  Reconstruction  Park 
is  a  combination  of  what  the  British  call  a  Heavy 
Repair  Shop  and  a  Salvage  Station  for  vehicles  and 
spare  parts.  The  work  done  amounts  to  actual  manu- 
facture and  it  is  well  worth  seeing. 


VIII— The  Miracle  Motor  Man 

AT  the  vast  Reconstruction  Park — it  is  not  far 
from  Nevers — that  we  will  now  visit  we  touch 
American  war  wonder-working  at  its  height. 
It  is  expressed  in  one  of  the  most  remarkable  institu- 
tions in  the  whole  A.E.F.,  in  reality  the  throbbing  in- 
carnation of  the  personality  of  an  unusual  man.  For 
now  we  come  to  the  stronghold  of  Colonel  Harry  A. 
Hegeman,  Admirable  Crichton  of  Mechanical  Trans- 
port— the  Miracle  Motor  Man  of  the  army.  The 
story  of  how  he  wrought  the  swift  transformation  of 
a  thousand-acre  field  into  a  modern,  well-equipped 
American  automobile  factory  employing  thousands  of 
men — a  vivid  cross-section  of  Detroit — is  like  a  tale 
out  of  some  Industrial  Arabian  Nights  Entertain- 
tainment.  But  there  is  a  difference;  the  nights  that 
witnessed  this  marvellous  evolution  were  somewhere 
in  France.  Instead  of  being  filled  with  music  and 
magic  they  were  packed  with  work  and  worry.  No- 
where in  the  war  have  I  seen  a  group  of  men  to  sur- 
pass the  heroic  unit  that  made  this  performance  possi- 
ble. If  our  Service  permitted  the  citation  of  organi- 
sations for  merit  the  Distinguished  Service  Cross 
would  undoubtedly  hang  from  its  standard. 

The  project  grew  out  of  a  plan  devised  at  Washing- 
ton in  June,  1917,  for  the  establishment  of  a  huge 

197 


198  S.  O.  S. 

motor  transport  repair  and  spare  part  plant  in  France. 
It  demanded  a  highly  trained  personnel,  an  immense 
amount  of  specialised  machinery  and  accessories,  and 
an  experienced  and  resourceful  Commanding  Officer. 
This  rare  combination  was  achieved  because  the  job 
of  mobilising  men  and  machines  was  put  up  to  the 
then  Major,  and  now  Colonel,  Harry  A.  Hegeman, 
one  of  the  pioneer  motor  enthusiasts  in  the  army. 
Curiously  enough  he  was  born  at  Sparta,  Wisconsin. 
If  ever  a  man  was  a  Spartan  it  is  Hegeman.  Big 
of  bone,  tireless  of  energy,  a  born  leader  of  men 
and  a  glutton  for  work  (this  is  why  they  call  him 
"Bull"  Hegeman  in  the  army),  he  was  the  ideal  choice. 
A  Mechanical  Engineer  by  profession,  he  went  into 
the  army  as  Volunteer  Officer  in  the  war  with  Spain 
and  remained  there.  His  service  ranges  from  the 
Philippines  to  Mexico.  He  had  charge  of  one  of  the 
first  motor  truck  trains  which  carried  food  and  sup- 
plies for  the  Pershing  Punitive  Expedition  that  went 
after  Villa.  He  knew  a  good  deal  about  motor  trans- 
port; now  came  the  opportunity  to  capitalise  his  ex- 
perience, and  he  did  it  in  memorable  fashion. 

His  first  step  was  to  buy  the  necessary  machinery. 
This  meant  a  trip  throughout  Industrial  America.  In 
purchasing  his  equipment  he  met  scores  of  manufac- 
turers. They  had  hundreds  of  artisans  coming  under 
the  draft.  He  said  to  them:  "Save  me  your  skilled 
men,"  and  they  did.  The  result  was  the  Mechanical 
Repair  Shop  Unit  that  will  be  forever  famous  in  the 
annals  of  the  American  Expeditionary  Force.  This 
hand-picked  organisation  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          199 

officers  and  four  thousand  men  who  represent  exactly 
one  hundred  and  nineteen  different  trades  and  occupa- 
tions has  recorded  a  succession  of  feats  without  paral- 
lel in  military  history. 

With  its  arrival  in  France  difficulties  at  once  de- 
veloped. Although  the  organisation  brought  hun- 
dreds of  carloads  of  machinery,  spare  parts  and  tools, 
no  site  had  been  selected  for  its  plant.  Men  and  ma- 
terial were  dumped  out  at  the  little  town  in  the  North 
which  is  the  Headquarters  of  the  Intermediate  Sec- 
tion. At  once  the  Unit  displayed  its  amazing  adapta- 
bility to  circumstances.  Instead  of  waiting  until  a 
site  was  found  it  immediately  established  itself  in  an 
old  French  Caserne  (a  Barracks)  where  once  Napo- 
leon's Legions  had  lived.  In  this  dingy,  draughty 
quadrangle  including  the  stables,  a  Repair  Shop  was 
set  up  and  in  which  efficient  work  was  done. 

Meanwhile  a  factory  site  was  located  thirty  miles 
from  town.  Now  began  the  dual  life  of  the  Unit. 
While  one  section  carried  on  at  the  old  French  Bar- 
racks the  other  began  to  convert  the  thousand  allotted 
acres  into  a  modern  automobile  factory.  No  army 
labour  was  available  and  these  highly  skilled  artisans 
who  are  supposed  to  have  a  temperament  as  artistic 
and  sensitive  as  an  opera  singer,  unloaded  freight  cars 
and  performed  the  most  menial  toil.  At  the  site  hun- 
dreds saw  considerable  trench  life  but  it  consisted  of 
digging  and  levelling  ground  for  roads  and  cement 
foundation-post  excavations.  Frequently  they  worked 
in  rivers  of  mud  during  the  wet  season  and  in  fierce 
sun  in  the  dry.  Because  Engineers  were  unavailable 


200  S.  O.  S. 

a  detachment  of  these  motor  mechanics  laid  five  miles 
of  railway  trackage,  including  ballasted  road-beds, 
switches  and  turn-outs.  It  is  typical  of  the  character 
of  the  organisation  that  the  foreman  of  the  Railway 
Construction  gang  was  a  Chicago  druggist  who  had 
joined  as  office  man! 

To  obtain  material  for  concrete  work  and  road 
building  it  was  necessary  to  dredge  sand  from  the 
bottom  of  an  adjacent  river.  It  was  loaded  on  a  canal 
boat,  drawn  eight  miles  by  mule  power,  unloaded  by 
hand  and  trucked  to  its  destination.  Fifty  thousand 
tons  of  crushed  stone  and  rock  obtained  from  French 
quarries  were  handled  in  the  same  way.  Keep  in 
mind  the  fact  that  during  all  this  construction  work 
the  temporary  shops  at  the  old  French  Barracks  thirty 
miles  away  were  turning  out  an  enormous  amount  of 
repair  and  salvage  work.  Both  projects  were  under 
Colonel  Hegeman's  personal  supervision.  Day  and 
night  he  dashed  from  one  to  the  other  in  a  high- 
powered  automobile — inspiring,  organising,  planning. 
Only  a  man  of  massive  frame,  iron  constitution  and 
indomitable  will  could  have  seen  the  job  through  in 
the  face  of  the  handicaps  that  beset  him  and  his  little 
army  of  willing  workers. 

In  less  than  sixty  days  the  first  immense  shop — a 
fabricated  steel  structure  made  in  the  United  States 
and  shipped  in  sections  for  assembling — rose  out  of 
that  erstwhile  wheat-field.  Now  began  the  procession 
of  long  trains  of  trucks  packed  with  machine  shop 
equipment,  tools  and  accessories  that  found  their 
proper  station  at  last.  Before  a  shop  was  complete 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN         201 

it  was  in  operation  because  the  equipment  was  in- 
stalled on  the  concrete  floors  before  the  last  rivet  was 
in  the  roof.  Approximately  six  hundred  tons  of, 
freight  were  unloaded  each  day  by  hand  during  the 
period  when  the  shops  were  being  equipped.  The 
amount  of  actual  physical  labour  alone  performed  by 
these  men  is  almost  beyond  belief. 

It  was  midsummer  when  Colonel  Hegeman  broke 
out  his  flag  at  this  Suburb  of  Detroit  that  had  risen 
in  France.  He  had  five  steel  shops  each  averaging 
twenty-five  thousand  square  feet  and  in  addition  a 
vast  storehouse  equipped  with  metal  shelves  which  is 
the  great  American  spare  part  depot  overseas.  This 
Park  is  organised  precisely  like  any  one  of  the  great 
motor  plants  in  the  United  States  that  turn  out  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  cars  a  year,  with  the  additional 
responsibility  of  feeding,  supplying  and  housing  its 
four  thousand  employes.  At  the  apex  of  the  pyra- 
mid or  organisation  is  Colonel  Hegeman.  Under  him 
is  an  Executive  Officer  who  has  charge  of  office  rec- 
ords, correspondence,  personnel  and  statistics.  There 
is  a  Chief  Quartermaster  charged  with  finance,  sub- 
sistence and  supplies;  a  Master  Mechanic,  and  a  Gen- 
eral Foreman.  Under  them  in  turn  are  the  various 
technical  departments,  each  in  charge  of  an  army 
captain  who  in  civil  life  was  a  Mechanical  or  Electrical 
Engineer.  These  various  departments  include  Engi- 
neering, Electrical  Work,  Spare  Parts,  Wood-work- 
ing, Motor  Vehicles,  Tires.  A  separate  department 
deals  with  Salvage  Reports  and  Records.  Thus  the 


202  S.   O.    S. 

institution  planned  to  repair  and  renew  motor  equip- 
ment has  become  a  full-fledged  manufacturing  plant. 

Months  before  this  Reconstruction  Park,  as  it  is 
technically  known,  was  a  going  concern  Colonel  Hege- 
man  and  his  Unit  had  become  the  Handy  Men  of  the 
whole  Intermediate  Section.  No  matter  what  was 
wanted  the  Hegeman  outfit  could  provide  it.  This 
is  why  I  called  him  the  Admirable  Crichton  of  Me- 
chanical Transport.  No  sooner  had  he  set  up  shop 
than  he  faced  a  shortage  in  raw  material.  A  large 
quantity  intended  for  him  was  caught  up  in  the  Service 
of  Supply  Pool  and  for  the  moment  was  unavailable. 
A  little  thing  like  this  did  not  disturb  Hegeman.  He 
got  in  his  car,  skirmished  around  the  country  and 
bought  up  all  kinds  of  metal  junk,  including  aban- 
doned trunnion  bands  of  big  guns  which  he  converted 
into  dies,  gears  and  steering  arms. 

Once  installed  his  factory  became  the  repository  of 
requests  for  every  conceivable  kind  of  article.  Upon 
one  occasion  the  Signal  Corps  was  in  urgent  need  of 
telegraph  cross  arms  and  appealed  for  relief.  Within 
forty-eight  hours  eight  thousand  arms,  converted  out 
of  undressed  lumber,  were  on  their  way.  A  whole 
fleet  of  five-ton  trucks  was  idle  because  certain  steer- 
ing arms,  unobtainable  in  France,  had  not  been  shipped 
from  America.  In  five  days  Colonel  Hegeman' s  fac- 
tory turned  out  five  hundred  which  immediately  re- 
leased this  number  of  trucks  for  the  front.  These 
arms  had  to  be  made  with  dies  and  hammers  prac- 
tically manufactured  at  the  plant.  A  third  demand 
was  for  certain  commutators  which  were  urgently  re- 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          203 

quired  for  ambulances.  Five  thousand  were  turned 
out  in  lots  of  five  hundred  every  three  days  and  as  a 
result  nearly  a  thousand  ambulances  were  enabled  to 
be  put  into  service  at  once.  Still  another  achievement 
was  the  design  and  construction  of  a  stock-room  on 
wheels  for  use  in  renewing  motor  equipment  at  the 
front.  An  automobile  body  designed  of  wood  and 
metal  and  equipped  with  scores  of  compartments  to 
hold  spare  parts  and  even  including  a  tiny  cubby  hole 
of  an  office  for  the  clerk  in  charge,  was  mounted  on  a 
five-ton  chassis  and  has  been  of  great  value.  The 
Tank  Corps  needed  a  training  tank  that  would  give 
the  student  a  realistic  idea  of  tank  riding  and  control 
so  the  Hegeman  Unit  constructed  one  mounted  on 
rollers  that  fills  the  bill.  The  Chief  Quartermaster 
wanted  the  old-fashioned  horse-drawn  kitchens  im- 
proved. Colonel  Hegeman' s  men  equipped  them  with 
truck  wheels,  springs  and  ball-bearings  which  enabled 
them  to  stand  shock  and  hard  service,  thus  making 
them  valuable  field  assets.  To  turn  from  serious  war 
needs  to  lighter  demands  let  me  round  out  this  cata- 
logue of  emergencies  met  by  saying  that  when  no  base- 
ball shoes  were  available  for  the  six  first-class  teams 
in  the  organisation  this  astounding  institution  made 
up  a  hundred  pairs  which  have  proved  most  service- 
able. You  are  not  astonished  when  I  say  that  at  the 
time  I  write  the  Reconstruction  Park  Nine  holds  the 
S.O.S.  pennant.  This  Unit  does  all  things  well. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  all  this  spectacular  per- 
formance has  been  a  mere  side  issue.  The  regular 
task  of  the  Reorganisation  Park  is  to  renew  battered 


204  S.  O.  S. 

motor  equipment.  The  smashed  motor-cycles,  pas- 
senger cars  and  trucks  that  come  in  every  day  emerge 
remade  and  shining.  You  can  follow  the  progress  of 
a  vehicle  from  Casualty  Section  through  these  cheer- 
ful, humming  shops  until  it  emerges  as  good  as  new. 
During  the  week  preceding  my  visit  in  August  I,  638 
Salvage  and  Emergency  jobs  were  received  and  445 
of  them  were  completed.  The  list  includes  large  and 
small  trucks;  passenger  cars;  motor-cycles  and  side- 
cars; bicycles  and  animal-drawn  vehicles  such  as  Gen- 
eral Service  wagons.  To  do  salvage  work  it  was 
necessary  to  cope  with  more  than  one  crisis.  The 
Unit  found  that  it  had  to  upholster  cars.  No  multi- 
ple cutter  to  cut  trimming  was  available  so  one  was 
manufactured  on  the  premises.  The  need  of  an  ad- 
justable binder  to  bind  leather  to  celluloid  was  met  in 
the  same  way.  The  place  drips  with  self-sufficiency. 

When  you  visit  this  institution  you  can  scarcely 
believe — save  for  the  presence  of  officers  in  uniform — 
that  you  are  in  an  establishment  built  by  the  army 
and  for  the  army.  Those  acres  of  steel  shops  with 
their  high  roofs,  glass  sides  and  concrete  floors  that 
represent  the  very  last  word  in  industrial  construc- 
tion and  which  resound  with  the  incessant  rattle  of 
lathe  and  hammer  might  be  anywhere  in  America. 
Like  the  great  Cities  of  Supply  that  we  have  reared 
it  lends  itself  to  indefinite  expansion.  This  is  why 
every  time  you  come  back  you  see  some  new  annex 
that  has  risen  during  your  absence.  If  you  want  the 
full  dramatisation  of  American  mechanical  resource, 
ingenuity  and  enterprise  abroad  you  will  find  it  at 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          205 

this  Reconstruction  Park  which,  when  all  is  said  and 
done,  is  merely  one  more  expression  of  Yankee  de- 
termination to  do  its  full  part  in  the  war. 

If  overhaul  and  even  complete  reconstruction  of 
wheels  and  bodies  represented  the  whole  Mechanical 
Transport  upkeep  proposition  it  would  be  an  easy 
matter  to  keep  the  Service  going.  But  every  day 
thousands  of  spare  parts  from  screw  to  transmission- 
shaft  must  be  replaced.  With  standardised  vehicles 
that  have  interchangeable  parts  we  would  simply  have 
to  carry  a  large  stock  of  a  comparatively  few  items. 
Such,  unfortunately,  is  not  the  case.  As  I  have  al- 
ready pointed  out,  unpreparedness  for  war  made  it 
necessary  for  us  to  buy  transport  indiscriminately. 
We  use  many  makes  and  many  types  of  every  make. 
Their  parts  are  not  interchangeable  and  we  are  there- 
fore compelled  to  keep  approximately  70,000  different 
items  on  the  shelves  of  our  stock-rooms  and  more 
especially  in  that  great  Central  Supply  Depot  which  is 
a  part  of  Colonel  Hegeman's  establishment  up  in  the 
Intermediate  Section.  How  do  we  do  it? 

To  get  the  answer  we  must  fall  back  on  that  army 
mainstay — The  Automatic  Supply.  By  this  I  mean 
that  all  spare  parts,  whether  changeable  or  inter- 
changeable, are  renewed  each  month  on  an  automatic 
basis.  When  a  truck  is  sent  to  France  a  quantity  of 
extra  spares  is  shipped  at  the  same  time.  If  the  ship- 
ment is  a  hundred  trucks  then  one  hundred  sets  of 
spares  are  started  coincidentally  on  the  same  boat  or 
some  other  vessel.  It  is  precisely  like  the  automatic 
supply  of  rations  which  is  sent  to  France  with  every 


206  S.  O.  S. 

unit  of  25,000  men.  This  lot  of  spares  is  renewed 
automatically  at  regular  intervals.  In  case  of  excep- 
tional needs  due,  for  example,  to  the  destruction  of  a 
warehouse  of  supplies  by  fire  a  requisition  is  made  by 
cable  for  a  complete  new  stock.  Washington  has  a 
complete  file  of  the  specific  needs  of  every  type  of 
vehicle  used.  In  addition  it  has  the  book  catalogue  of 
spares  of  every  known  truck  and  vehicle  in  the 
A.E.F.  If  a  cablegram  is  sent  asking  for  "Ten 
X32362A"  it  means  that  ten  steering  knuckles  com- 
pletely assembled  (right  front)  of  a  certain  five-ton 
truck  are  desired.  Thus  renewal  of  spare  parts  stock, 
while  involving  countless  items,  is  reduced  to  a  com- 
prehensive and  workable  basis. 

Taking  Colonel  Hegeman's  Central  Depot  as  an 
illustration,  we  find  that  although  millions  of  articles 
are  carried  in  stock  there  is  a  separate  metal  bin  for 
every  item.  This  bin  is  carefully  labelled  and  is  in- 
spected every  day.  When  a  Service  Park,  which  car- 
ries a  small  stock  of  spares,  makes  a  requisition  on 
the  Central  Depot  for  renewal  of  stock  the  Central 
Depot  in  turn  automatically  replaces  the  supply  by 
requisitioning  on  the  Reception  Park  at  the  Base  Port. 
In  this  way  insurance  is  taken  out  against  sudden 
shortages. 

When  you  go  into  the  matter  of  spare  parts  supply 
you  find  that  in  every  army  certain  history  repeats 
itself.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  human  nature  re- 
mains the  same  whether  the  person  wears  a  British, 
a  French,  an  Italian  or  an  American  uniform.  Most 
chauffeurs  have  a  tendency  to  hoard  spare  parts. 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          207 

They  know  that,  as  compared  with  other  motor  car 
supplies  such  as  tires,  spare  parts  are  scarce.  With 
commendable  zeal  all  desire  to  keep  their  equipment 
going  constantly.  Hence  they  resort  to  all  sorts  of 
subterfuges  to  get  a  surplus  of  spares.  In  order  to 
prevent  hoarding  and  to  have  the  least  possible  drain 
on  the  supply,  no  spare  part  is  renewed  until  the  old 
part  is  tendered  in  exchange.  If  the  part  is  destroyed 
and  therefore  cannot  be  returned,  a  complete  report 
on  the  manner  of  destruction  endorsed  by  an  officer 
must  be  submitted.  All  requisitions  for  spare  parts 
must  be  made  out  in  triplicate.  To  prevent  mistakes 
these  requisitions  must  be  vised  by  an  officer  at  the 
garage  wherever  the  truck  or  car  happens  to  be 
stationed,  and  who  is  supplied  with  complete  Vocabu- 
laries of  all  spare  parts.  He  orders  by  numbers  and 
thus  the  Requisition  is  made  as  mistake-proof  as  pos- 
sible. 

With  tires  the  procedure  is  of  course  much  simpler. 
A  tire  is  a  tire.  It  is  pneumatic  or  solid.  No  elaborate 
stock  of  different  types  is  required.  Our  supply  in 
France  is  based  on  carefully  figured  out  estimates  of 
tire  life.  Into  this  computation  go  such  factors  as 
mileage  covered,  wear  and  tear,  and  the  kind  of  serv- 
ice the  vehicle  is  in — that  is,  whether  it  is  passenger  or 
freight.  From  these  facts,  based  on  previous  expe- 
rience, is  derived  an  average  of  the  number  of  new 
tires  needed  by  a  truck,  for  example,  every  month. 
This  average  happens  to  be  two  tires.  This  number 
is  multiplied  by  the  number  of  trucks  in  France  and 
the  result  represents  the  monthly  tire  renewal  sent 


208  S.  O.  S. 

every  thirty  days.  The  tires  are  usually  arranged 
in  long  racks  that  reach  to  the  ceiling  of  the  darkened 
warehouses.  As  little  light  as  possible  is  allowed  to 
shine  on  these  treasure-troves  of  rubber  which  repre- 
sent a  money  value  equal  to  a  King's  ransom. 

One  all-important  essential  to  motor  transport  oper- 
ation remains  to  be  described.  I  mean  gasolene  which 
the  British  call  petrol  and  the  French  designate  as 
essence.  To  keep  the  army  supplied  with  "gas"  is 
a  tremendous  responsibility  because  without  this  life- 
giving  fluid  all  equipment  would  be  useless.  When 
you  analyse  our  system  you  find  that  it  differs  in  every 
detail  but  one  from  the  British.  The  one  common 
feature  in  both  armies  is  that  the  "juice"  arrives  in 
France  on  tank  steamers.  The  British  then  reduce 
it  to  tin  containers  of  four  gallons  each  which  are 
in  universal  use.  Every  British  army  motor  vehicle 
carries  a  number  of  these  cans. 

With  the  A.E.F.,  however,  the  bulk  system  is 
used,  from  refinery  to  front,  which  means  that  just 
as  we  have  reproduced  a  section  of  Detroit  in  auto- 
mobile reconstruction  so  do  we  operate  what  amounts 
to  a  replica  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  with  fuel. 
Here  the  experience  of  the  Reserve  Officer  again 
comes  into  useful  play  because  the  head  of  the  Gaso- 
lene Department — it  is  under  the  control  of  the  Chief 
Quartermaster — is  Lieutenant  Colonel  Charles  E. 
Dudley,  who  literally  grew  up  with  the  world's  great- 
est oil  corporation  and  represented  it  in  England  be- 
fore we  went  to  war. 

At  La  Pall  ice  is  our  Port  of  Gasolene  Entry.    Here 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          209 

come  the  tank  steamers  which  carry  from  1,500,000 
gallons  up  to  3,000,000  gallons.  Their  cargo  is 
pumped  direct  into  huge  steel  storage  tanks  fabricated 
in  America  and  set  up  by  army  men  in  France.  Evi- 
dence of  our  war  endeavour  is  the  fact  that  we  are 
now  building  one  tank  which  alone  will  hold  2,700,000 
gallons.  From  these  tanks  the  gasolene  is  pumped  in 
turn  to  American-made  and  American-operated  tank 
cars — the  same  kind  of  big  steel  drums  that  you  see 
everywhere  on  our  railroads  at  home.  These  cars 
have  a  capacity  of  6,500  gallons.  Every  day  a  string 
of  these  cars  leaves  the  ports  for  the  Tank  Stations 
which  you  find  all  the  way  up  the  line  from  the  sea 
to  within  sound  of  the  guns. 

At  scores  of  points  we  have  portable  metal  tanks 
for  storage.  They  are  made  of  assembled  plates 
forged  in  America  and  hold  from  7,500  to  15,000  gal- 
lons each.  They  had  to  be  specially  built  to  make  the 
low  clearance  of  the  French  tunnels.  These  portable 
tanks  are  side-tracked  at  the  railway  stations  and 
serve  as  the  reservoirs  of  supplies  for  the  motor  tank 
wagons  that  haul  the  fuel  to  the  consumer  which  may 
be  a  garage  or  the  headquarters  of  the  Division  in  the 
field.  These  tank  wagons,  which  hold  as  much  as 
1,000  gallons  each,  travel  in  trains.  This  bulk  system 
idea  is  maintained  straight  through  the  Advance  Sec- 
tion. In  regions  where  there  is  danger  from  shell  fire 
or  air-raids  a  reserve  supply  is  maintained  in  an  under- 
ground tank  which  holds  on  an  average  1,200  gallons. 
The  gasolene  flows  in  by  gravity  from  the  tank  wagon. 
Up  in  the  field  a  small  tank  mounted  on  a  light  truck 


210  S.  O.  S. 

is  used  to  supply  trucks  and  cars  that  work  with  the 
Combat  Army.  Only  in  the  rarest  instances  is  a  tin 
can  used. 

The  system  of  distribution  is  so  simple  and  compre- 
hensive that  Major  Dudley  can  sit  at  his  desk  at  Tours 
and  know  all  the  time  just  what  the  situation  is.  Be- 
fore him  is  a  huge  map  on  which  storage  stations  are 
indicated  by  red  flags.  Attached  to  the  map  is  a  card 
brought  up  to  date  every  morning  and  which  shows 
the  quantity  of  gasolene  in  France.  The  whereabouts 
of  tank  cars  is  followed  with  equal  precision  by  means 
of  a  chart  showing  the  railway  routes  from  ports  to 
the  Advance  Section.  On  it  the  location  of  every  tank 
car  is  shown  by  tags.  A  small  green  tag  indicates  the 
loaded  car  while  a  red  one  is  the  empty  car  on  its  way 
back  to  the  seaboard. 

You  might  know  that  any  American  oil  enterprise 
would  have  the  inevitable  pipe-line  attachment.  The 
army  is  building  a  line  from  Havre  to  the  centre  of 
our  gasolene  distribution  that  will  save  exactly  $10,000 
a  day  in  tanker  tonnage  alone  for  the  reason  that  it 
will  cut  down  the  fuel  ship  "Turn  around"  by  six 
days.  Here  you  have  another  conspicuous  example 
of  American  enterprise  overseas.  When  Colonel 
Dudley  suggested  this  pipe-line  to  the  French  author- 
ities they  said  it  was  impossible. 

"But  all  things  are  possible  with  the  American 
Army/'  was  the  reply,  and  the  army  is  making  good. 
This  undertaking  means  the  laying  down  of  eighty- 
two  miles  of  pipe  which  must  cross  one  of  the  largest 
rivers  in  France.  The  material  is  not  only  in  process 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          211 

of  construction  but  some  of  it,  together  with  the 
skilled  labour  that  will  assemble  it,  is  already  in 
France. 

When  you  come  to  gasolene  statistics  you  plunge 
once  more  into  the  arena  of  bewildering  figures.  The 
average  allotment  is  the  five  gallons  a  month  for  each 
man  in  the  A.E.F.  It  is  estimated  that  the  Amer- 
ican army  in  France,  as  now  planned,  will  consume 
150,000,000  gallons  of  motor  gasolene  from  July  1st, 
1918,  to  June  30,  1919.  The  Air  Service  alone  will 
burn  up  30,000,000  gallons  in  that  time.  Kerosene 
oil  will  be  used  to  the  extent  of  7,500,000  gallons. 
The  homely  but  effective  item  of  castor  oil  for  aero- 
planes will  register  2,250,000  gallons  while  the  total 
amount  of  motor-lubricating  oils  for  trucks,  automo- 
biles, motorcycles,  tanks  and  aeroplanes  will  be  1,875,- 
ooo  gallons.  A  final  reminder  of  the  scope  of  the 
army  motor  operation  is  the  fact  that  during  these 
twelve  months  3,000,000  gallons  of  cup  grease  will 
be  needed. 

All  motor  supplies,  whether  spares,  tires  or  gasolene, 
are  easily  available  throughout  the  Sections  that  we 
use  in  France.  I  made  a  considerable  trip  by  motor 
over  the  Lines  of  Communication  and  we  were  never 
at  a  loss  for  anything.  The  chauffeur  or  driver  must 
sign  a  duplicate  receipt  for  everything  he  gets.  A 
carbon  copy  goes  to  his  unit  and  is  charged  up  against 
his  car.  Following  the  British  precedent  every  road 
is  marked  in  signs  that  proclaim:  "Keep  to  the 
Right"  or  "Motor  Transport  Park  Straight  Ahead." 

This  far-flung  motor-driven  machine  that  I  have 


212  S.    O.    S. 

tried  to  take  apart  and  which  often  carries  the  men 
and  munitions  upon  which  the  fate  of  battle  hangs, 
must  be  kept  fit.  The  periodical  overhaul  at  a  Park 
will  not  do  the  job  completely  for  the  simple  reason 
that  day  and  night — for  Mechnanical  Transport  is  al- 
ways at  work — collisions,  abuses,  or  any  one  of  the 
many  hazards  of  travel  on  congested  roads  may  impair 
mechanism  and  the  car  or  truck  might  fail  in  a  vital 
emergency.  Hence  a  constant  inspection  of  equip- 
ment is  necessary. 

In  command  of  this  Supervision  which  really  super- 
vises is  Colonel  Charles  Hine,  former  Organisation 
Expert  of  the  Harriman  Railway  System.  He  is  a 
West  Pointer  who  became  a  freight  brakeman  after 
his  graduation  and  worked  his  way  up  to  a  Vice- 
Presidency.  When  we  came  to  grips  with  Germany  he 
was  Assistant  to  the  President  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railway.  Our  army  Motor  Inspection  has  the 
advantage  of  his  many  years  of  experience  with  stearn^ 
electric  and  gasolene  driven  traffic. 

At  best,  any  kind  of  inspection  is  a  thankless  task. 
The  average  man  who  runs  a  truck  for  a  corporation 
does  not  like  to  have  an  eagle-eyed  and  heartless  offi- 
cial descend  upon  him  at  unexpected  moments  and 
turn  his  vehicle  inside  out.  He  resents  the  process. 
The  whole  idea  behind  Colonel  Hine's  scheme  of  oper- 
ation therefore  is  to  reverse  the  usual  procedure  and 
make  inspection  welcome.  Thus  tact  is  the  first  essen- 
tial among  his  inspectors,  who  are  all  technical  men 
and  who  can  take  an  automobile  apart  and  assemble 
it  with  equal  ease.  Although  they  have  the  authority 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          213 

to  stop  any  vehicle  on  the  road  and  inspect  it  at  will 
they  carry  a  line  of  "selling  talk"  that  will  convince 
the  chauffeur  that  inspection,  however  inconvenient, 
not  only  makes  for  personal  efficiency  and  therefore 
promotion  but  is  just  one  more  step  towards  winning 
the  war.  The  American  soldier,  intense  individualist 
that  he  is,  has  taken  naturally  to  this  supervision 
which  is  such  an  all-essential  feature  of  M.T.  opera- 
tion. 

You  have  seen  how  we  get  machines  and  supplies 
to  France  and  keep  them  renewed.  These  transport 
fleets  need  thousands  of  chauffeurs  and  mechanics. 
Where  do  they  come  from? 

Here  you  touch  the  human  element  no  less  interest- 
ing in  the  realm  of  motor  cars  than  in  the  domain  of 
big  guns.  Go  to  any  big  army  garage  and  you  are 
likely  to  see  a  one-time  automobile  salesman  giving 
commands  to  his  former  boss.  The  little  tin  insignia 
on  the  shoulder  levels  all  previous  relations.  Up  the 
line  you  may  encounter  John  Jones,  previously  a  drive 
of  a  Fifth  Avenue  motor-bus  in  New  York,  running 
the  star-bedecked  car  of  a  Major  General  while  the 
rider  of  the  motorcycle  with  side-car  attached  that 
passes  him  on  the  road  and  throws  a  cloud  of  dust 
in  his  face  is  probably  Bill  Brown  who  once  operated 
the  luxurious  limousine  of  a  millionaire  steel  magnate. 
So  it  goes  in  this  reeking,  snorting  Empire  of  the 
Automobile. 

There  are  two  principal  sources  of  personnel  sup- 
ply. One  is  the  chauffeur  of  civil  life,  who  simply 
changes  from  the  Vehicle  of  Peace  to  the  Wagon  of 


214  S.  O.  S. 

War  and  who  needs  no  technical  teaching.  The  other 
is  the  man  trained  by  the  army  for  army  Motor 
Service. 

Let  us  first  take  the  case  of  the  enlisted  man  who  is 
assigned  to  the  Motor  Transport  Corps.  Immediately 
upon  his  arrival  in  France  he  is  required  to  fill  out 
what  is  known  as  an  Organisation  Card  on  which  he 
not  only  states  his  personal  history  but  indicates  what 
experience  he  has  had  with  motor  vehicles.  On  the 
back  of  this  Card  are  the  names  of  thirty  occupa- 
tions all  connected  with  Motor  Transport  and  rang- 
ing from  assembler  in  an  automobile  factory  up  to 
expert  driver  and  skilled  mechanic.  Each  occupation 
is  numbered.  At  the  top  of  the  Card  is  a  scale  of 
these  numbers.  If  a  man  is  a  truck  driver  a  little 
red  clip  is  put  over  number  n — which  happens  to  be 
the  number  of  that  job.  On  every  other  truck  driver's 
card  a  similar  marker  is  placed  at  n.  When  a  requi- 
sition comes  in  from  a  Division  or  a  Park  for  truck 
drivers  the  Personnel  Officer  simply  looks  at  his  File 
of  Men  Available  and  can  see  from  the  number  of 
red  markers  how  many  drivers  are  in  his  Human 
Pool.  As  soon  as  a  man  is  assigned  his  Card  goes 
into  the  Assigned  Index.  He  is  then  caught  up  in 
the  records  of  whatever  unit  he  joins  and  thus  con- 
tinues to  be  a  cog  in  the  Service  Census.  As  in  the 
British  Army  Service  Corps,  we  make  every  effort  to 
employ  men  as  drivers  and  mechanics  who  are  unfit 
for  further  fighting.  Class  B  and  C  men,  for  exam- 
ple, who  have  been  wounded  but  who  are  still  fairly 
physically  fit,  are  trained  for  the  Motor  Service. 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          215 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  source  of  Personnel 
Supply,  which  is  the  Army  Motor  Training  School. 
Uncle  Sam  has  set  up  in  France  as  complete  a  School 
for  Chauffeurs  as  you  can  find  anywhere.  It  is  run- 
ning Colonel  Pope's  famous  "Get-Trained-Quick" 
course  down  on  the  Mexican  border  a  close  second 
because  it  turns  out  drivers  ready  to  take  the  wheel 
in  exactly  two  weeks'  time.  The  School  is  located  in 
the  Intermediate  Section  a  short  distance  from  Colonel 
Hegeman's  Reconstruction  Park.  The  reason  for  this 
proximity  is  obvious.  One  object  of  the  institution  is 
to  give  the  students  an  intimate  knowledge  of  automo- 
bile manufacture.  Hence  each  day  a  batch  of  them 
drives  over  in  a  truck  to  the  shops  at  the  Park,  dons 
overalls  and  takes  up  station  at  lathe  or  forge.  They 
study  with  the  real  thing. 

The  course  for  drivers  includes  shop  and  field  work, 
individual  driving  and  infantry  drill  which  is  the  train- 
ing in  military  etiquette  and  discipline.  No  student 
is  permitted  to  get  a  certificate  from  the  School  of 
Instruction  until  he  has  had  a  working  try-out  on  the 
road.  He  must  prove  that  he  can  run  a  truck  on  a 
crowded  highway  on  a  dark  night  and  not  lose  his 
nerve.  He  must  also  assemble  engines  that  have  been 
taken  apart  and  make  emergency  repairs  of  mechan- 
ism purposely  put  out  of  gear. 

One  necessary  detail  is  a  mastery  of  French  road 
signs.  As  in  the  case  of  the  American-  locomotive 
engineers  our  Motor  Transport  drivers  are  up  against 
the  language  and  traffic  customs  of  a  strange  country. 
In  England  road  traffic  turns  to  the  left  instead  of  to 


216  S.  O.  S. 

the  right  as  in  the  United  States.  In  France  this  is 
not  true  but  the  highways  are  literally  plastered  with 
warnings  which  must  be  heeded  to  escape  accident. 
John  Jones  therefore  must  learn  that  "Virage"  means 
a  sharp  turn,  that  "Cassis"  is  a  bad  bump;  that  "Ra- 
lentir"  means  "Slow  Up" ;  that  "Tenez  Votre  Droit" 
is  "Keep  to  Your  Right,"  and  that  "Passage  a 
Niveau"  is  "Railway.  Crossing." 

The  school  course  for  motor  mechanics  is  for  six 
weeks  and  includes  shop  work  of  all  kinds.  Before 
a  man  graduates  he  must  give  practical  demonstra- 
tions of  mounting  and  dismounting  vehicles,  use  of 
machine  and  bench  tools  for  forging,  soldering  and 
brazing  and  he  must  also  repair  solid  and  pneumatic 
tires.  Most  of  these  students  have  worked  in  some  kind 
of  machine  shop  before.  There  is  also  a  six  weeks' 
course  for  officers  which  embraces  automobile  en- 
gineering, shop  management,  map-reading  and  con- 
voy running. 

It  only  remains  to  follow  Mechanical  Transport  up 
to  the  firing  line.  The  moment  you  get  into  the  Zone 
of  the  Armies  you  leave  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Di- 
rector of  the  Motor  Transport  Corps  and  come  under 
the  authority  of  the  Fighting  Chiefs.  As  in  every- 
thing else,  the  Combat  troops  have  first  call  on  motor 
equipment.  Each  army  exercises  a  supervision  of 
Motor  Operation.  This  means  that  there  is  a  so- 
called  Motor  Transport  Officer  at  Headquarters  with 
each  Corps  and  with  every  Division.  These  Officers 
are  responsible  for  the  upkeep  of  transport  which,  in 
the  field,  ranges  from  the  motorcycle  up  to  the  huge 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN          217 

and  unwieldy  gasolene-driven  caterpillars  that  haul  the 
massive  howitzers.  Every  Division  has  its  allotment 
of  vehicles  and  personnel  which  are  renewed  from 
Service  Parks  in  the  Advance  Section. 

Just  as  soon  as  a  truck  is  assigned  to  a  Division 
it  is  labelled  with  the  device  of  that  Unit  which  is  a 
symbolic  picture  of  some  kind.  I  used  to  think  that 
the  French  camions — as  their  trucks  are  known — held 
the  record  for  originality  of  insignia  with  their  crow- 
ing cocks  and  running  hares  but  the  Americans  have 
surpassed  them.  On  our  trucks  you  can  see  baseball 
players  at  the  bat;  heads  of  pretty  girls;  a  coiled  snake 
ready  to  spring  which  recalls  that  famous  Revolution- 
ary battle-flag  flung  to  the  breeze  on  many  a  hard- 
fought  field  and  which  bore  the  words :  "Don't  tread 
on  me."  On  our  trucks  you  also  see  stencils  of  the 
Bunker  Hill  monument,  foxes  and  Indian  heads.  All 
equipment  of  the  Air  Service  bears  the  familiar  red, 
white  and  blue  circle  which  gleams  from  the  aeroplane 
wings.  This  matter  of  markings  for  trucks  is  sys- 
tematised.  At  Motor  Transport  Headquarters  at 
Tours  a  soldier  who  was  an  artist  in  civil  life  has 
prepared  a  hundred  different  designs  which  are  kept 
in  a  folder  and  allotted  to  Divisions. 

In  the  field  the  Pooling  System  is  in  full  swing. 
There  is  always  a  liquid  reservoir  of  transport  ready 
for  emergencies.  It  made  possible  the  mobilisation 
of  General  Pershing's  army  last  September  and  en- 
abled him  to  forestall  the  Germans  and  achieved  the  now 
historic  victory  of  St.  Mihiel.  It  is  this  kind  of  co- 
operative effort  that  makes  for  success  in  a  war  where 


218  S.  O.  S. 

Unity  of  Supply  is  just  as  essential  as  Unity  of 
High  Command. 

The  whole  close-knit  American  motor  machine  not 
only  serves  the  Fighting  Army  but  is  impressing  les- 
sons of  efficiency  and  organisation  that  will  reach  far 
beyond  the  flaming  battle-lines  and  have  a  definite  and 
constructive  effect  upon  the  commerce  of  peace.  Chief 
among  them  is  the  Standardisation  of  Vehicles.  After 
a  year  of  wrestling  with  every  conceivable  make  and 
model  we  have  settled  down  to  a  definite  and  orderly 
basis  of  supply.  In  passenger  cars  we  are  only  buy- 
ing three  well-known  makes  whose  worth  has  been 
amply  proved.  Likewise  only  two  long-established 
light  delivery  trucks  will  be  acquired  while  the  one- 
ton  truck  to  be  bought  henceforth  will  have  the  same 
chassis  as  our  heavy  ambulance  and  therefore  the 
parts  of  these  two  vehicles  will  be  interchangeable. 
With  one  and  a  half  and  two-ton  trucks  one  make  will 
be  used  which  will  greatly  simplify  renewal. 

It  is  with  three  and  five-ton  trucks,  however,  that 
the  real  achievement  in  standardisation  has  been  reg- 
istered. It  finds  expression  in  the  Liberty  Truck 
which  will  go  down  into  history  as  a  worthy  work- 
fellow  of  the  Liberty  Motor  that  is  carrying  death  and 
destruction  to  German  trench  and  town.  It  is  com- 
posed of  parts  made  by  manufacturers  who  are  pro- 
vided with  Government  specifications  produced  by 
the  Bureau  of  Standards  at  Washington.  Anybody 
with  a  factory  anywhere  can  get  these  specifications 
and  make  the  parts.  The  Truck  therefore  becomes  a 
matter  of  assembling.  If  you  can  standardise  hon- 


THE  MIRACLE  MOTOR  MAN         219 

esty  in  the  production  of  parts  you  can  get  a  hundred 
per  cent  vehicle  and,  what  is  equally  important,  you 
will  solve  the  whole  trying  problem  of  spare  parts 
supply.  Every  part  will  be  interchangeable.  The 
Army  is  not  concerned  with  the  various  arguments 
for  or  against  this  kind  of  standardisation  after  the 
war.  It  wants  action  and  the  Liberty  Truck,  like  all 
the  rest  of  the  Mechanical  Transport,  delivers  the 
goods. 


IX— The  Salvage  of  Battle 


WHEN  civilisation  begins  to  adjust  itself  to  the 
unfamiliar  sensation  of  a  world  at  peace  it 
will  be  found  among  other  unexpected  things 
that  War  is  not  all  Waste.    The  enforced  lessons  of 
thrift,   household   economy   and   popular   investment 
will  be  fully  matched  by  the  extraordinary  precedent 
established  in  the  conservation  of  men  and  material 
that  can  only  have  a  beneficent  and  constructive  effect 
on  all  future  endeavour. 

In  my  book  "The  Business  of  War'*  I  explained  the 
immense  reclamation  work  of  the  British  Army  which 
in  three  years  has  saved  to  the  Empire  more  than  half 
a  billion  dollars  out  of  stuff  that  would  ordinarily 
have  gone  into  the  scrap-heap.  Since  that  first  revela- 
tion of  the  wonders  of  war  rehabilitation  a  whole 
new  attitude  has  developed  toward  what  might  be 
called  Battle  Utility. 

Despite  this  astonishing  exhibit  of  rehabilitation 
wrought  out  of  monster  destruction  there  was  a  gen- 
eral, and  not  altogether  unnatural  feeling  when  Amer- 
ica entered  the  conflict  that,  being  supplied  with  al- 
most unlimited  men  and  money,  her  waste  would  be 
prodigal.  The  exact  reverse  has  been  true.  Just  as 
we  fooled  the  Kaiser  and  his  fellow  prophets  who 
declared  that  we  would  be  a  negligible  factor  in  the 

220 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     221 

struggle  so  have  we  confuted  the  alarmists  who  main- 
tained that  Uncle  Sam  would  be  a  spendthrift.  Profit- 
ing by  British  and  French  experience  we  have  injected 
into  the  spirit  of  Combat  and  Supply  a  kindred  spirit 
of  saving  that  has  almost  become  a  gospel.  Our  Sal- 
vage Squads  march  with  the  advancing  troops.  We 
destroy  and  rebuild  at  the  same  time.  The  battlefield 
of  to-day  is  the  workshop  of  to-morrow.  We  not  only 
do  the  ordinary  reconstruction  of  equipment  but  we 
reclaim  maimed  human  beings  as  well  and  go  one  step 
further.  The  soldiers  who  are  temperamentally  and 
otherwise  unfit  to  fight  and  who  would  be  encum- 
brances instead  of  aids,  are  tactfully  deployed  into 
proper  and  useful  stations  where  their  patriotism  and 
their  experience  are  alike  capitalised.  The  Salvage  of 
War,  American  Stamp,  like  the  Business  of  War, 
American  Brand,  is  a  many-sided  demonstration  of 
Yankee  originality  and  application. 

The  story  of  our  salvage  therefore  falls  into  two 
General  Divisions:  one  which  deals  with  the  ordinary 
retrieving  of  material  things,  and  which  has  become 
a  common  annex  of  every  highly  organised  army; 
the  other  which  affects  men  alone  and  which,  so  far 
as  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  is  concerned,  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  and  original  institutions  that 
I  have  encountered  in  the  war.  We  will  briefly  go 
into  the  material  work  first.  All  equipment  Salvage 
systems  operate  alike  and  it  merely  becomes  a  mat- 
ter of  pointing  out  result  and  picturesque  detail. 

We  were  fortunate  in  being  able  to  benefit  by  the 
British  and  French  systems  which,  with  the  generos- 


222  S.    O.    S. 

ity  that  has  marked  the  attitude  of  our  Allies,  were 
placed  at  our  disposal.  Since  the  former  is  fairly  fa- 
miliar to  most  Americans  I  will  use  it  for  comparison. 
At  the  outset  you  find  that  while  the  method  of  work 
is  practically  the  same  the  motive  behind  British  and 
American  reclamation  is  not  quite  identical.  The 
first  consideration  in  British  salvage  is  to  save  money ; 
with  the  United  States  the  foremost  consideration  is 
to  save  tonnage.  The  financial  end  is  useful  but  inci- 
dental. A  cubic  ton  of  our  ship  space  represents  more 
than  so  much  ordinary  cargo-carrying  capacity  in 
times  of  peace.  With  us,  as  I  have  elsewhere  pointed 
out,  Ships  are  Life.  We  are  up  against  the  biggest 
transport  problem  in  all  military  history.  Wherever 
you  turn  in  an  examination  of  the  A.E.F.  you  find 
that  tonnage  is  the  supreme  question.  Hence  our 
Salvage  grew  out  of  the  realisation  of  the  Chief 
Quartermaster  that  it  would  relieve  the  strain  on  ship- 
ping if  it  were  not  necessary  to  give  a  soldier  a  brand 
new  blouse  every  time  the  one  on  his  back  became 
unserviceable.  So,  too,  with  shoes,  belts,  haversacks, 
rifles  and  other  equipment.  The  Salvage  Service  has 
reached  the  point  where  the  tonnage  which  would 
have  been  required  for  the  renewal  of  all  this  equip- 
ment is  employed  for  commodities  such  as  foodstuffs 
and  ammunition  and  which  cannot  be  retrieved  in 
large  quantities. 

What  is  technically  known  as  the  Salvage  Service 
was  installed  as  a  part  of  the  work  of  the  Quarter- 
master Corps.  In  charge  is  Colonel  T.  B.  Hacker, 
a  veteran  regular  army  Quartermaster  who  took  as 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     223 

naturally  to  the  job  as  if  he  had  been  born  in  a  junk 
shop  and  had  dealt  with  old  clothes  instead  of  hard 
tack  and  canned  beans  all  his  life.  His  office  is  in 
the  same  building  at  Tours  which  houses  the  Chief 
Quartermaster,  Major-General  Harry  L.  Rogers.  Be- 
fore him  is  the  great  map  of  the  Domain  of  Reclama- 
tion, which  is  the  usual  concrete  visualisation  of 
American  army  work.  The  Salvage  Depots  are  indi- 
cated by  red  and  white  flags;  the  location  of  Salvage 
Squads  by  red  flags;  permanent  Army  Laundries  by 
black  flags;  Portable  Laundries  by  blue;  Portable 
Deverminising  plants  by  green;  Field  Bathing  and 
Sterilising  establishments  by  yellow,  and  Fat  Reduc- 
tion plants  by  black  and  white.  From  this  list  of  sta- 
tions you  get  an  idea  of  the  whole  comprehensive 
sweep  of  Salvage  which  not  only  cleans  clothes  but 
likewise  the  bodies  of  the  fighting  men. 

At  the  start  Colonel  Hacker  not  only  had  the  great 
advantage  of  being  able  to  adapt  the  British  system 
but  he  was  not  forced  to  labour  under  the  handicaps 
which  made  it  impossible  for  Britain  to  even  think 
of  salvage  until  nearly  a  year  of  war  had  passed.  The 
British  had  to  rush  an  army  into  the  field  almost 
overnight.  They  were  up  against  a  life  and  death 
emergency  and  emergency  knows  no  thrift.  Besides, 
just  as  soon  as  the  army  caught  its  breath  it  regarded 
waste  of  food  and  equipment  as  part  of  the  soldier's 
life.  There  was  always  the  comfortable  reflection 
that  "The  Government  is  rich  and  can  afford  it." 
The  Tommy  had  to  be  taught  to  save. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  American  soldier,  al- 


224  S.  O.  S. 

though  part  of  a  nation  of  wasters,  adapted  himself 
at  once  to  the  Salvage  idea.  He  was  quick  to  con- 
serve everything  from  a  horseshoe  nail  up  to  a  big 
gun.  This  adaptability  has  been  of  immense  help  to 
the  Service. 

A  third  aid  was  the  obvious  fact  that  we  began  to 
salvage  at  the  top  wave  of  reclamation  development 
which  finds  expression  in  the  British  army  in  the  sav- 
ing of  everything  in  a  pig  except  that  well-known 
squeal,  and  with  the  French  in  the  use  of  the  threads 
dropped  out  of  the  salvage  machines  for  the  manu- 
facture of  clothing.  We  knew  that  in  the  army  rags 
are  shredded;  that  the  tops  of  old  socks  are  made 
into  mittens;  that  scraps  of  leather  make  serviceable 
shoe-laces;  and  that  even  the  fat  is  boiled  out  of  the 
cloths  used  to  wrap  up  carcasses  of  beef  while  the 
goods  itself  is  cut  up  for  wash-rags.  The  sum  of 
these  trifles,  to  paraphrase  Michael  Angelo,  is  the  per- 
fection of  salvage. 

Just  as  soon  as  we  had  the  first  semblance  of  an 
army  in  France  we  began  to  impress  the  salvage  idea. 
Material  piled  up  but  we  lacked  the  machinery  with 
which  to  redeem  it.  The  first  problem  was  to  find  a 
suitable  initial  plant,  which  was  easier  said  than  done. 
The  Chief  Quartermaster  assigned  Brigadier  General 
John  F.  Madden  and  Colonel  M.  J.  Henry  to  this  task 
and  they  scoured  middle  and  southern  France.  After 
weeks  of  effort  they  located  an  ideal  structure,  or  rather 
a  series  of  structures,  in  a  suburb  of  Tours.  It  was  a 
group  of  railroad  shops  which  the  French  had  used 
temporarily  as  a  Supply  Depot. 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE    225 

Here  we  have  set  up  Salvage  Depot  Number  One 
which  is  the  largest  single  institution  of  the  kind  that 
I  have  seen.  Once  more  you  get  the  kindling  exam- 
ple of  amazing  army  expansion.  In  January  of  last 
year  it  had  a  personnel  of  exactly  ten,  including  offi- 
cers and  enlisted  men.  Only  one  corner  of  a  building 
was  used.  When  I  visited  it  last  August  it  was  oc- 
cupying 243,50x5  square  feet  of  space  and  employing 
7,000  persons,  ninety-five  per  cent  of  whom  were  wo- 
men who  have  to  be  hauled  back  and  forth  every  day 
in  motor-trucks.  During  February  the  value  of  the 
articles  retrieved  was  less  than  $5,000.  For  August 
they  represented  a  saving  to  the  United  States  of 
$3,246,588  which  was  an  increase  of  $1,000,000  over 
the  July  record.  Such  is  the  marvel  of  our  salvage 
development  that  naturally  fits  into  the  larger  miracle 
of  what  America  is  doing  in  France. 

This  colossal  establishment  reeks  with  a  movement 
that  is  only  surpassed  by  the  odour  exuded  from  the 
tons  of  waste  that  are  dumped  daily  at  its  doors.  The 
eight  acres  of  working  space  in  and  out-doors  literally 
buzz.  The  clatter  of  machines  cannot  drown  the  in- 
cessant chatter  of  the  voluble  French  women  who 
range  from  short-skirted  maids  to  wizened  great- 
grandmothers  and  who  maintain  every  tradition  of  a 
full-fledged  factory  including  a  strike  and  a  "walk- 
out" on  occasion. 

Ten  ^thousand  army  blankets  go  through  the  mill 
here  every  day ;  it  is  no  unusual  performance  to  repair 
and  ship  14,000  pairs  of  socks  between  morning  and 
evening  or  renew  1,000  pairs  of  rubber  boots  within 


226  S.  O.  S. 

the  same  time.  Nothing  is  thrown  away.  The  gar- 
ments incapable  of  restoration  for  the  American  troops 
are  dyed  green  for  our  prisoners  of  war. 

The  reclamation  of  shoes — we  turn  out  3,500  pairs 
of  shoes  each  day  at  this  plant  alone — is  typical  of 
the  methods.  The  shoes  are  washed  in  big  steam  rol- 
ler rubs  and  afterwards  soaked  in  oil  vats.  Mechan- 
ical processes  attach  soles  and  heels.  As  in  the  British 
Shops  the  unfit  uppers  are  cut  up  into  laces.  No  less 
labour-saving  is  the  system  of  restoring  rubber  boots 
which  are  dried  by  continuous  blasts  of  hot  air  after 
washing.  All  the  torn  parts  are  repaired  by  expert 
tire  men. 

No  detail  of  this  Salvage  plant  is  more  picturesque 
than  the  Laundry  which  is  the  largest  in  Europe.  It 
is  big  enough  to  do  all  the  so-called  "rough-dry"  laun- 
dry work  of  a  city  of  the  size  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  and 
is  as  noisy  as  a  foundry.  Its  steam-driven  batteries 
of  washing  machines  and  wringers — each  one  with  a 
capacity  of  450  pieces — turn  out  100,000  articles  from 
socks  to  overcoats.  Every  day  in  one  month  they 
laundered  2,500,000  pieces.  I  can  give  you  no  better 
idea  of  the  immense  value  of  these  machines  than  to 
say  that  each  one  of  them  does  the  work  of  seventy- 
five  women. 

This  mammoth  army  laundry  is  not  without  its 
element  of  human  interest.  One  day  last  August  a 
new  batch  of  men  was  assigned  to  work  in  it.  The 
officer  in  charge  lined  them  up  and  said : 

"If  any  one  here  has  had  any  laundry  experience 
let  him  hold  up  his  hand." 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE    227 

After  a  silence  a  little  yellow  private  raised  his  right 
hand  and  timidly  stepped  out  of  the  ranks. 

"Where  did  you  work?"  asked  the  officer. 

"I  had  a  laundry  in  San  Francisco/'  was  the  reply. 

It  then  developed  that  he  was  a  Chinaman  who  had 
been  caught  in  the  first  draft  and  who  is  now  one  of 
the  mainstays  of  the  laundry.  Re-classification  will 
never  disturb  this  yellow  brother  who  is  supremely 
happy  on  his  own  working  heath. 

Salvage  Depot  Number  One,  immense  as  it  is,  is 
merely  one  link  in  the  chain  of  establishments.  In  the 
southern  part  of  France  we  have  a  group  of  four 
Depots  which  use  more  than  275,000  square  feet  of 
space  and  employ  4,000  people.  These  stations  spe- 
cialise in  shoes  and  are  working  toward  a  daily  output 
of  10,000  pairs.  A  Harness  Repair  Shop  which  in- 
cludes the  repair  of  canvas  and  web  equipment  is  a 
feature.  All  together  we  have  nearly  twenty  Salvage 
Depots  large  and  small  with  nearly  a  million  square 
feet  of  working  space,  and  the  number  will  be  in- 
creased as  the  army  expands  and  as  the  visible  supply 
of  material  grows. 

These  Salvage  Depots  are  joined  by  a  System  of 
Communications  which  collects  and  distributes  the 
material.  This  brings  us  to  the  really  dramatic  phase 
of  salvage  which  is  the  wreckage  of  the  Combat  area. 
With  the  A.E.F.  as  with  the  other  armies,  there  are 
two  kinds  of  salvage — Battle  and  Normal.  The 
former  deals  with  the  debris  of  actual  fighting  which 
may  include  anything  from  a  haversack  to  a  howitzer, 
while  the  latter  is  the  refuse  of  the  Services  of  Supply 


228  S.  O.  S. 

which  means  empty  packing  cases,  tin  cans,  kegs  and 
barrels.  In  both  areas  kitchen  refuse  is  conserved 
and  employed  in  many  useful  and  profitable  ways  as 
you  will  see  later  on. 

The  assembling  of  Normal  Salvage  is  a  simple  mat- 
ter of  gathering  up  the  cast-off  waste  at  Supply  De- 
pots, workshops,  training  camps,  barracks  and  billet- 
ing areas.  It  is  with  Battle  Salvage  that  you  get 
both  the  tragedy  and  trouble.  Each  army  in  the  field 
has  a  so-called  Chief  of  Salvage  Service  who  is 
charged  with  the  duty  of  supervising  the  collection  of 
all  material  to  be  salvaged.  Under  him  are  Salvage 
Companies  who  are  attached  to  every  Division. 
These  are  divided  in  turn  into  Squads  who  follow  hot 
on  the  heels  of  the  fighting  men.  More  than  once 
they  have  thrown  aside  bags  or  shovels  or  leaped 
from  collection  carts  and  joined  in  the  fighting  fray. 

Field  Salvage  is  assembled  in  Advance  Dumps 
which  are  precisely  what  the  word  implies.  Here 
everything  is  first  piled  up  without  regard  to  class. 
You  can  see  acres  of  coats,  blankets,  leggings,  shoes, 
some  of  them  marked  with  the  crimson  stain  which 
means  that  death  has  been  near  at  hand.  Still  more 
impressive  are  the  great  Metal  Dumps  which  are  im- 
mense stretches  of  junk  and  which  give  the  impression 
that  Uncle  Sam  has  gone  into  the  second-hand  busi- 
ness. Steel  helmets  with  their  tell-tale  holes  or  deep 
dents  made  by  flying  shrapnel  reveal  the  grim  story 
of  battle. 

These  Dumps  in  the  field  or  immediately  behind  are 
something  like  the  Unclaimed  Baggage  Rooms  of  a 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     229 

railway  company  although  they  have  a  much  more 
definite  and  tragic  interest.  They  include  field  ranges, 
stoves,  tools,  trunks — all  the  trappings  of  camp  and 
field.  When  a  unit  goes  into  action  it  must  strip 
itself  of  all  unnecessary  impedimenta.  Some  of  it  is 
already  war-worn.  In  the  army  if  anybody  is  in 
doubt  about  the  disposition  of  anything  it  goes  to  the 
Salvage  Dump,  which  accounts  for  its  heterogeneous 
quality.  At  one  Dump  I  saw  a  banjo  with  scores  of 
inscriptions  on  the  drum.  It  had  evidently  belonged 
to  a  college  boy  who  had  beguiled  his  comrades  with 
it  on  the  troop  transport  that  brought  them  over. 
With  the  curious  tenacious  affection  that  soldiers  dis- 
play for  trinkets  they  bring  from  home  he  had  lugged 
it  up  to  the  Zone  of  Advance  and  only  relinquished  it 
when  he  began  to  play  a  more  dangerous  and  difficult 
tune  than  he  had  ever  twanged  out  on  catgut  strings. 
His  banjo  then  probably  became  a  machine  gun. 

All  the  salvage  material  brought  in  from  the  field 
of  battle  is  not  damaged.  When  our  victorious  troops 
swept  through  the  St.  Mihiel  salient  they  found  ample 
evidence  that  they  had  given  the  Germans  a  real  sur- 
prise. In  the  dug-outs  of  the  Boche  officers  were 
pianos,  phonographs  and  elaborate  writing  desks,  all 
left  intact  when  their  late  owners  beat  a  hasty  and 
precipitate  retreat.  This  reminds  me  of  a  striking 
war  contrast  that  was  revealed  one  day  during 
Pershing's  first  great  offensive.  A  group  of  exultant 
doughboys  assembled  for  a  breathing  spell  dragged 
one  of  these  captured  pianos  out  in  the  open.  A 
husky  New  Yorker,  using  an  ammunition  box  as  a 


230  S.  O.  S. 

stool,  began  to  pound  out  American  rag-time.  Out 
of  forty  German  pianos  gathered  up  after  this  historic 
victory  five  were  of  French  manufacture  which 
showed  that  the  barbarians  had  looted  French  houses 
and  even  carried  away  heavy  plunder. 

In  the  Zones  of  the  Armies  the  soldier  is  never  per- 
mitted to  forget  that  salvage  is  one  of  his  first  obliga- 
tions. The  injunction  is  painted — and  sometimes  in 
an  amusing  fashion — on  signs  that  you  see  every- 
where. I  used  to  think  that  the  British  salvage  re- 
minders were  striking  but  ours  go  them  one  better. 
Once,  for  example,  I  saw  a  piece  of  German  equipment 
upon  which  a  facetious  American  had  left  this  sign: 
"MADE  IN  GERMANY;  TO  BE  SALVAGED 
FOR  AMERICA/' 

One  of  the  frequent  signs  read :  "IF  YOU  DON'T 
WANT  IT— SALVAGE  DOES."  Another  that 
greets  you  on  all  sides  is:  "WHAT  HAVE  YOU 
SALVED  TO-DAY?"  A  characteristic  sign  says: 
"EACH  TON  SAVED  HERE  MEANS  A  TON 
SAVED  IN  SHIPPING."  No  injunction  is  more 
characteristic  of  the  American  spirit,  no  less  irrepress- 
ible in  war  than  in  peace,  than  the  one  which  pro- 
claims: "IF  YOU  ARE  TOO  BUSY  PHONE  US 
—AMERICAN  SALVAGE."  Other  salvage  signs 
have  these  inscriptions:  "DROP  IT  HERE;"  "THIS 
IS  OUR  DUMP— WHERE'S  YOURS;"  "PRE- 
PARE FOR  WINTER— SALVAGE  IT." 

It  used  to  be  the  fashion  to  pay  no  attention  to  so- 
called  "duds,"  which  are  unexploded  shells.  They 
are  now  salvaged  and  add  considerably  to  the  ammuni- 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     231 

tion  supply.  Throughout  the  whole  area  of  the 
armies  you  can  find  signs  which  urge  shell  conserva- 
tion. One  of  the  most  familiar  boards  reads  like  this: 

"DON'T  WASTE  SHELLS.  THEY  ARE  IN- 
TENDED FOR  FRITZ,  NOT  FOR  WASTE." 

Material  for  salvage,  whether  enemy  or  American, 
is  removed  from  the  Advance  Dump  which  is  always 
in  the  combat  area  and  conveyed  to  the  Army  Dump 
which  is  located  behind  the  lines  and  at  Railheads. 
Here  the  first  sorting  takes  place.  Great  care  is  exer- 
cised to  see  that  ammunition  is  withdrawn  from  cloth- 
ing and  belts.  The  property  is  then  carefully  scru- 
tinised to  find  out  if  it  is  fit  for  immediate  issue  which 
is  often  the  case  with  captured  stores.  Material  and 
equipment  only  slightly  damaged  is  repaired  at  the 
Army  Dump  which  is  usually  equipped  with  portable 
repair  shops  mounted  on  five-ton  motor-trucks. 

Articles  which  must  go  to  permanent  Salvage  De- 
pots are  shipped  by  railway.  Salvage  cars  are  part 
of  every  train  that  goes  back  from  Railhead.  So  ex- 
tensive has  become  the  bulk  of  Salvage  that  it  has  its 
own  Regulating  Station.  During  one  week  in  August 
exactly  195  cars,  containing  wrecked  material,  were 
loaded  and  sent  out,  and  these  did  not  include  big  guns 
and  motor  transport,  which  are  a  considerable  item. 

Each  Salvage  Depot  specialises  in  reclamations. 
Clothing,  blankets,  leggings,  rubber  and  leather  equip- 
ment, underwear,  field  ranges,  helmets  and  trench 
tools,  for  instance,  go  to  the  vast  plant  just  outside  of 
Tours.  Range  finders,  trench  periscopes,  watches, 
compasses,  machine  guns  and  automatic  rifles  are 


232  S.  O.  S. 

shipped  to  a  huge  Ordnance  Salvage  Station  up  in  the 
Advance  Section;  medical,  surgical,  dental,  veterinary 
and  X-Ray  instruments  go  to  a  highly  organised  re- 
pair shop  in  Paris ;  motor  transport,  rolling  kitchens, 
bicycles,  motor-cycles  and  wagons  are  shipped  to  the 
automobile  factory  somewhere  in  the  Intermediate 
Section  that  I  described  in  the  preceding  article  in 
this  series.  There  is  a  special  factory  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  gas  masks  and  also  one  for  Signal  Corps 
apparatus  which  includes  radio-vehicles  and  field  tele- 
phone and  telegraph  sets.  The  salvaging  of  big  guns 
is  done  in  a  complete  foundry  and  machine  shop  that 
is  an  annex  of  the  Ordnance  Service. 

The  moment  that  an  article,  whether  a  belt  or  an 
overcoat,  arrives  at  a  Salvage  Station  it  becomes  part 
of  a  system  of  records  no  less  complete  than  the  ma- 
chine that  retrieves  it.  That  is  the  reason  why  at  the 
Tours  Depots,  for  example,  it  is  possible  to  issue  every 
week  a  complete  and  itemised  statement  showing  the 
amount  of  property  sterilised,  washed,  salvaged  and 
returned  to  circulation.  It  indicates  the  total  value 
and  amount  of  material  shipped;  the  wages  paid;  the 
cost  of  new  material  used  in  repairs  and  operations 
and  the  relative  cost  of  salvaging  material  as  com- 
pared to  its  cost  in  the  American,  British  or  French 
factory.  You  discover  that  with  the  salvaging  of  a 
pair  of  shoes,  for  instance,  the  cost  of  remaking  as 
compared  with  the  present  war  prices  for  new  shoes 
is  less  than  one  per  cent. 

One  phase  of  Army  Salvage  deserves  a  little  chapter 
all  to  itself  because  of  the  great  lesson  to  peace  that 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     233 

it  will  convey.  I  mean  Food  Conservation,  which  is 
technically  known  as  Kitchen  Economics.  Here  we 
show  the  distinct  influence  of  the  British  system  which 
has  reduced  the  reclamation  of  refuse  to  a  science  that 
is  little  short  of  remarkable.  England  was  forced  to 
adopt  drastic  measures,  first  because  of  the  immense 
waste  in  the  army  kitchens ;  and  second  because  of  the 
high  price  she  was  paying  for  glycerine  which  is  one 
of  the  essentials  in  the  manufacture  of  high  explosives. 
To  understand  the  connection  between  waste  redemp- 
tion and  high  explosive  let  me  say  that  animal  fat 
produces  soap  and  one  of  the  by-products  of  soap- 
making  is  glycerine.  One  hundred  pounds  of  fat  pro- 
duce ten  pounds  of  glycerine.  All  the  British  army  fat 
is  now  bought  by  a  group  of  soap  manufacturers 
known  as  the  Committee  for  the  Purchase  of  Army 
Refuse.  By  this  arrangement  the  Ministry  of  Muni- 
tions secures  glycerine  at  $250  a  ton  instead  of  $1,250 
which  was  the  price  before  she  began  to  reclaim  army 
garbage. 

We  did  not  suffer  the  same  waste  in  our  army 
kitchens  for  the  reason  that,  almost  from  the  start 
of  our  overseas  adventure,  the  Army  Salvage  System 
anticipated  extravagance  and  put  a  premium  on  econ- 
omy by  making  it  profitable.  It  introduced  a  com- 
plete process  for  the  salvage  of  kitchen  by-products 
which  mean  all  camp  waste  such  as  meat,  bones,  fat 
and  drippings  of  all  kinds,  stale  bread  and  the  burlap 
and  wrappings  from  frozen  beef.  These  products 
are  rendered  into  fat  whenever  possible,  or  sold  in  the 
form  in  which  they  emerge  from  range  or  table.  The 


234  s-  O.  S. 

price  is  fixed  every  six  months.  At  the  time  I  write 
the  price  per  hundred-weight  of  marrow  bones  was 
$3-36;  for  first  class  drippings  $15.36;  for  butcher's 
fat  $7.44;  for  cracklings  $3.54,  while  the  quotation 
on  scrap  bread  was  $3.40  for  each  hundred  pounds. 
The  proceeds  go  to  the  Company's  Messes  and  are 
used  for  luxuries. 

Wherever  possible  the  cook  is  required  to  use  up  his 
waste  products  on  the  premises.  When  he  has  an 
excess  over  his  own  needs  he  assembles  it  in  containers 
and  it  is  hauled  off  to  the  Field  Fat  Extracting  plants 
where  it  is  reduced  to  fat.  The  material  is  treated  in 
boiling  tanks  through  which  superheated  steam  is 
passed.  The  fat  is  run  out,  put  in  barrels  and  is  pur- 
chased by  the  United  States  Government,  which  thus 
performs  for  our  army  the  same  service  that  the  Com- 
mittee for  the  Purchase  of  Army  Camp  Refuse  does 
for  the  British. 

No  army  cook  in  the  A.E.F.  is  permitted  to  forget 
the  fact  that  America  expects  every  scrap  of  food  to 
do  its  duty.  In  every  cook-house  or  camp  kitchen  is 
a  big  chart  which  contains  the  following  admonition 
in  large  letters  at  the  top : 

"With  a  view  of  impressing  all  units  with  the  im- 
portance of  preserving  and  rendering  all  available  fats 
the  following  chart  is  issued  to  show  the  source  from 
which  fats  can  be  recovered  and  the  methods  of  treat- 
ment. The  preservation  and  treatment  of  all  fats  is 
not  only  necessary  from  an  economical  and  cook-house 
point  of  view  but  it  has  become  also  of  national  im- 


THE  SALVAGE  OF  BATTLE     235 

portance.  These  fats  are  used  for  'dubbin/  soap  and 
glycerine  to  make  explosives/' 

The  chart  indicates  precisely  how  recoveries  of  fat 
are  made.  First  of  all  the  cook  is  shown  in  simple 
text  all  the  sources  of  fat  which  may  be  obtained  from 
raw  meat,  the  processes  of  cooking,  waste  bones, 
refuse,  or  the  scrapings  from  tin  cans  or  meat  wrap- 
pings. He  is  also  shown  how  to  treat  meat  and  bones 
so  as  to  obtain  the  fat  and  he  is  further  taught  how 
to  utilise  it.  This  chart  is  also  full  of  helpful  hints 
for  kitchen  emergencies.  If  there  is  no  butter,  for 
example,  butcher's  fat  may  be  rendered  down  and 
used  as  a  substitute.  By  the  same  process  so-called 
trimmings  from  raw  meat  may  be  rendered  and  used 
in  baking  cakes  or  biscuits,  and  so  on. 

The  Salvage  System  permits  no  guilty  scrap  of 
food  to  escape.  Even  the  bakery  sweepings  are  gath- 
ered up  and  sold  for  $2  a  hundredweight  while  the 
swill  is  disposed  of  to  French  farmers  who  pay  50 
cents  a  barrel  for  it.  Our  empty  tin  cans,  kegs  and 
barrels  are  used  as  containers  for  the  fat  when  it  is 
shipped  while  the  flour  sacks,  are  sent  up  to  the  front 
for  sand  bags. 

Most  people  will  probably  be  surprised  to  know  that 
the  American  Army  manufacture  some  of  the  soap 
that  is  used  in  France.  It  is  made  out  of  the  fat  ren- 
dered from  kitchen  waste.  Most  of  this  soap  is  ab- 
sorbed by  the  field  laundries  which  comprise  an  im- 
portant branch  of  the  Salvage  Service.  These  laun- 
dries range  from  a  portable  Motor  Divisional  estab- 
lishment drawn  by  a  tractor  which  provides  power  to 


236  S.  O.  S. 

drive  the  washing  machines  and  transportation  as  well, 
to  a  huge,  permanent  plant  which  washes  the  linen 
of  a  Base  hospital  with  a  capacity  of  30,000  beds. 

The  whole  process  of  reclaiming  kitchen  waste  has 
a  much  larger  value  than  merely  saving  army  food  and 
adding  cash  to  mess  funds.  Upon  the  cook,  his  helper, 
and  indeed  upon  every  man  in  uniform  who  comes  in 
contact  with  this  organised  economy  is  impressed  at 
first  hand  the  lasting  virtue  of  conservation.  He  finds 
that  instead  of  impairing  the  quality  of  the  food  he 
eats  this  utilisation  of  waste  improves  it.  The  lux- 
uries that  he  is  enabled  to  enjoy  as  a  result  of  this 
thrift  demonstrates  that  saving  has  its  dividends. 
When  he  goes  back  home  after  the  war,  resumes  civil- 
ian life,  and  goes  to  grips  again  with  that  most  eternal 
of  all  evils,  the  High  Cosfof  Living,  which  may  be 
even  higher  than  ever,  he  will  be  able  to  adapt  himself 
readily  to  whatever  economic  emergencies  may  arise. 
He  will  be  able  to  make  his  money  go  further  than 
ever  before.  Here  you  have  one  of  the  many  perma- 
nent compensations  of  war. 


X— New  Men  for  Old 


RECONSTRUCTION  of  equipment  is  a  ma- 
chine-line process  that  deals  with  unresponsive 
things.  We  can  now  proceed  to  the  phase  of 
salvage  which  touches  the  human  being  and  which  is 
rich  with  an  interest — even  a  fascination — rarely  met 
with  in  war.  Technically  and  baldly  known  as  Classi- 
fication of  Personnel,  it  is,  in  reality,  the  agency 
through  which  wounded  men  are  redeemed;  made  fit 
for  continued  work  in  the  army  and  beyond  that, 
equipped  for  the  struggle  of  life  that  must  come  when 
the  sword  is  sheathed.  It  involves  a  scheme  of  con- 
servation of  man-power  that  is  not  only  based  on  an 
economic  principle  but  meets  a  military  necessity  at 
the  same  time. 

No  one  need  be  told  that  the  successful  prosecution 
of  the  war  demanded  that  every  man  in  uniform, 
whether  officer  or  private,  should  serve  where  he  could 
serve  best  and  where  he  could  utilise  his  particular 
skill  and  ability.  An  army  of  misfits  is  a  handicap. 
A  trained  man  misplaced  becomes  an  untrained  man. 
A  civil  engineer,  for  example,  assigned  to  an  infantry 
regiment  throws  away  years  of  costly  training  needed 
elsewhere.  In  the  same  way  the  technical  training  of 
a  gas  expert  assigned  by  mistake  to  the  Aviation  sec- 
tion is  totally  lost  to  the  Service.  A  machinist  is 

237 


238  S.  O.  S. 

worth  probably  ten  times  more  in  a  machine  gun  bat- 
talion than  in  a  headquarters  troop. 

The  War  Department  has  provided  an  antidote  for 
all  this  in  the  vocational  deployment  of  men  through 
what  is  known  as  the  Personnel  System  which  deals 
with  Casuals,  the  unassigned  troops  who  come  from 
the  United  States,  and  with  all  the  temporarily  and 
permanently  unfit  soldiers  who  are  shunted  from 
Evacuation  hospitals  and  Convalescent  camps  into  a 
central  clearing-house  which  classifies  them  according 
to  their  mental  and  physical  capabilities.  It  deals 
therefore  with  casuals  and  casualties  and  very  properly 
may  be  called  a  Human  Salvage  Station. 

If  you  want  to  see  how  this  extraordinary  system 
operates  you  must  come  with  me  to  the  charming  little 
town  of  Blois  that  overlooks  the  Loire.  Nature  must 
have  had  some  vague  intimation  long  ago  that  in  this 
restful  verdant  nook  the  maimed  veterans  of  America's 
Army  of  Freedom  would  come  for  sanctuary  and  to 
get  a  fresh  grip  on  usefulness.  It  is  a  picturesque 
little  community  with  crooked  streets  and  with  the 
usual  Caserne — a  quadrangle  of  barracks — which  is 
now  the  nerve-centre  of  our  army  recuperation. 

To  this  place  the  able-bodied  casuals  are  sent  direct 
from  their  port  of  entry  into  France  for  assignment. 
With  these  so-called  Class  A  men  who  are  part  of  a 
replacement  draft  from  the  United  States  it  is  an  easy 
matter  of  assignment  to  a  Combat  unit.  The  big 
problem  is  with  the  soldiers  who  have  been  wounded 
in  battle  or  otherwise  injured,  who  have  been  dis- 
charged from  hospital  and  who  present  just  so  much 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  239 

human  material  to  be  salvaged  for  service.  It  is  with 
this  group  that  we  are  chiefly  concerned. 

Just  as  soon  as  a  man  is  discharged  from  hospital 
he  must  appear  before  a  so-called  Disability  Board 
which  grades  him  and  recommends  the  Service  for 
which  he  is  suitable.  Like  all  other  armies  we  have 
various  Classes.  Class  A,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 
is  men  physically  fit  for  combat  service.  Class  B-i 
includes  men  temporarily  unfit  for  fighting  but  able 
to  do  hard  work  in  the  meantime,  while  Class  B-2  in- 
cludes those  temporarily  unfit  for  combat  service  and 
able  to  do  only  light  work  in  the  interim.  Class  C-i 
is  composed  of  troops  permanently  unfit  for  combat 
service  but  able  to  do  heavy  work  in  the  Services  of 
Supply ;  Class  C-2  comprises  soldiers  permanently  un- 
fit for  combat  service  but  able  to  perform  light  work 
in  the  S.O.S.  Class  D  men  are  unfit  for  all  duty 
with  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  and  usually 
go  home  honourably  discharged. 

With  a  knowledge  of  these  various  Classes  in  your 
mind  you  can  readily  see  how  difficult  is  the  task  of 
allocating  thousands  of  men,  each  one  with  his  own 
little  bit  of  experience  back  in  the  States,  which  must 
be  capitalised  to  the  fullest  extent  and  yet  not  subject 
him  to  exertion  or  hardship  that  will  impair  his  health 
or  render  his  man-power  unavailable  for  the  army. 
Complicated  as  it  may  seem  the  whole  work  of  classi- 
fication and  reclassification  is  so  highly  organised  that 
between  morning  and  evening  a  man  can  arrive  at 
this  Station,  undergo  thorough  examination,  obtain 
complete  equipment  and  be  on  the  way  to  a  proper  and 


240  S.  O.  S. 

suitable  station.  I  have  seen  similar  systems  in  other 
armies  but  the  American  scheme  of  readjustment  leads 
all  the  rest. 

These  results  are  made  possible  by  what  may  be 
called  a  Chute  System.  The  enlisted  man  who  may 
have  lost  all  his  baggage,  who  has  only  the  clothes  on 
his  back,  a  freshly-healed  wound  in  his  side  and  a  most 
doubtful  state  of  mind  as  to  what  is  to  become  of  him, 
enters  a  door  and  by  pursuing  a  continuous  path 
emerges  in  a  few  hours  bathed,  shaved,  fully  equipped, 
financed,  with  bulging  barrack-bag  in  his  hand,  and  a 
little  card  in  his  pocket  which  assigns  him  to  a  job 
that  is  both  useful  and  congenial.  He  never  doubles 
on  his  tracks.  So  thorough  is  the  automatic  trans- 
formation that  it  sometimes  seems  like  a  dream  to  the 
men  who  have  been  through  this  most  humane  of  all 
mills.  Let  us  now  see  how  it  works. 

This  Chute  which  is  for  all  the  world  like  the 
famous  animal  run-way  in  "Packingtown"  in  Chicago 
is  located  in  a  large  building  known  as  the  Classifica- 
tion Barracks.  All  enlisted  personnel  enter  in  single 
file.  Each  man  carries  in  his  hand  the  Report  of  the 
Disability  Board  that  has  examined  him  and  which 
states  his  name,  number,  army  unit ;  the  nature  of  his 
disability  and  whether  it  existed  before  or  after  he 
entered  the  army;  his  classification,  that  is  whether  he 
is  Class  B  or  C;  and  the  nature  of  the  duty  recom- 
mended for  him  by  the  Board.  He  is  now  handed  a 
sheet  of  paper — an  Inspection  Slip — which  contains 
an  itemised  list  of  what  will  happen  to  him  on  his 
journey  down  the  Chute.  As  these  things  happen  they 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  241 

are  checked  off.  First  of  all  the  man  is  registered, 
after  which  he  passes  on  to  a  desk  where  he  can  take 
out  War  Risk  Insurance  and  re-arrange  the  allowance 
and  allotment  for  his  family.  If  he  has  no  insurance 
already  this  formal  reminder  is  likely  to  equip  him 
with  a  policy.  Next  comes  an  examination  for 
disease.  After  physical  examination  is  the  Vocational 
classification.  In  front  of  the  Examining  Sergeant 
is  what  is  known  as  the  Index  of  Occupation,  a  large 
chart  which  contains  the  list  of  every  job  that  the 
average  man  can  hold.  Each  one  has  a  number. 
The  three  most  common  occupations  are  Factory 
Worker  which  is  Number  i,  Farmer  which  is  Number 
2,  and  Labourer  which  is  Number  3.  Each  man  is  re- 
quired to  give  his  life's  history  in  terms  of  work.  It 
includes  the  last  firm  that  employed  him ;  its  address ; 
the  kind  of  work  he  did;  the  wage  he  received; 
whether  he  exercised  authority  or  leadership;  how 
long  he  worked;  and  also  a  list  of  any  other  jobs  or 
occupations  that  he  may  have  had.  Included  of  course 
is  the  usual  personal  information. 

All  these  facts  are  written  on  a  large  card  which  is 
technically  known  as  Qualification  Record.  At  the 
top  of  this  card  is  a  scale  of  numbers  corresponding  to 
every  one  of  these  major  occupations  on  the  Index 
of  Occupations.  Just  as  soon  as  this  card  is  filled  out 
a  red  marker  is  put  over  the  number  indicating  the 
man's  qualifications  for  work.  In  the  case  of  a  motor 
mechanic  it  would  go  over  Number  24,  which  happens 
to  be  the  index  number  for  this  particular  job.  When 
the  cards  are  filed  the  Assignment  Officer  can  see  at 


242  S.  O.  S. 

a  glance  how  many  men  he  has  available  for  every  job. 

The  Qualification  Record  filled  out,  our  man  now 
continues  his  journey  down  the  Chute.  The  next  sta- 
tion is  the  Pay  Department.  Many  men  leave  hospital 
without  a  cent.  In  order  that  they  have  some  pocket 
money  each  man  is  given  an  advance  of  $7.50  on  his 
pay.  After  financial  needs  are  met  assignment  is 
made  to  Companies  by  physical  qualifications.  This 
means  that  all  B-i  men  would  be  put  in  one  group. 
Each  man  is  given  a  Barrack  Bag  which  he  presents 
at  a  miniature  Department  Store  where  it  is  filled  with 
clean  underwear,  socks,  field  shoes,  razor,  tooth  brush 
and  paste,  and  where  he  also  gets  the  daily  ration  of 
tobacco.  Adjoining  is  a  bath-room  where,  with  soap 
and  towel  provided  at  the  Equipment  Counter,  he 
cleanses  himself  from  head  to  foot.  As  a  final  touch 
he  can,  if  he  so  desires,  end  this  remarkable  overhaul- 
ing journey  by  sitting  down  in  an  American  barber- 
chair  in  a  sanitary  barber-shop  and  have  his  hair  cut 
or  his  face  shaved  before  emerging  a  new  man. 

Now  you  can  understand  what  I  meant  when  I  said 
that  more  than  one  soldier  has  believed  that  the  Chute 
process  was  a  dream.  Despite  its  thoroughness  ex- 
actly twelve  hundred  men  have  been  classified  in  these 
Barracks  in  a  single  day.  The  moment  that  the  man 
emerges  he  is  marched  off  to  the  Barracks,  put  in 
charge  of  a  Non-Commissioned  Officer  who  issues  a 
Travel  Order  which  indicates  his  destination.  From 
a  Location  Slip  he  knows  for  the  first  time  that  he  is 
to  go  to  Salvage  Depot  X,  let  us  say,  and  that  he  is 
to  start  at  8  o'clock  the  next  morning.  In  the  mean- 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  243 

time  he  has  an  opportunity  to  stretch  his  legs;  listen 
to  a  band  concert  composed  of  temporarily  unfit  sol- 
diers or  even  watch  a  boxing  bout  which  is  one  of  the 
great  entertainment  features  every  evening.  In  sum- 
mer a  baseball  game  is  one  of  the  daily  diversions. 

This  Human  Salvage  Station  is  a  gold-mine  of  inci- 
dent that  reveals  the  character  of  the  American  soldier. 
Here  is  a  typical  case.  When  a  Casual  Company  is 
sent  off  in  a  body  the  Travel  Order  sometimes  con- 
tains a  hundred  names  with  considerable  data  after 
each  one.  Four  copies  must  be  made — all  by  hand. 
One  night  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  Classification 
Barracks,  Lieutenant  William  R.  Quinn,  was  told  that 
two  brothers,  both  wounded  at  the  same  time  and 
devotedly  attached  to  each  other,  were  to  be  separated. 
The  Travel  Order  which  divorced  them  contained  a 
hundred  and  fourteen  names  and  had  just  been  writ- 
ten and  distributed.  These  boys  did  not  want  to  be 
separated.  In  order  to  keep  them  together  it  was 
necessary  to  rewrite  the  Travel  Orders  which  would 
mean  hours  of  work.  The  Barracks  clerks  had 
worked  from  7.45  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  10.30 
at  night  every  day  for  weeks,  yet  when  Lieutenant 
Quinn  stated  the  facts  every  man  volunteered  to 
re-write  the  papers  in  order  that  these  two  brothers 
might  remain  together.  This  performance  has  been 
duplicated  several  times.  It  disclosed  the  fact  that 
there  are  hundreds  of  groups  of  brothers  in  the 
A.E.F.  Frequently  you  find  three,  even  four,  mem- 
bers of  a  family  in  the  same  unit. 

Here  is  another  instance  of  character.     One  day 


244  S.  O.  S. 

a  little  Marine  hardly  up  to  the  minimum  require- 
ments of  height  and  weight  showed  up  for  classifica- 
tion. He  had  been  badly  gassed  and  wounded. 
Having  been  a  stenographer  in  New  York,  he  was 
attached  to  the  clerical  force  at  the  station.  A  few 
days'  work,  however,  convinced  the  officer  in  charge 
that  he  could  not  stand  the  indoor  labour  so  he  was 
given  light  outdoor  duty.  One  night  he  approached 
a  comrade  and  asked  if  he  could  borrow  a  hundred 
francs. 

"What  do  you  want  to  do  with  this  money?"  asked 
his  mate. 

"I  want  to  beat  it  A.W.O.L.  (Absent  without 
leave),  shoot  across  France  and  join  my  outfit  in  the 
trenches,"  was  his  reply. 

This  bantam  who  still  had  the  German  poison  in 
his  system  and  who  was  physically  unfit  to  do  a  full 
day's  work  was  willing  to  break  the  rules,  subject 
himself  to  a  Court  Martial  in  order  to  get  back  to 
the  fighting  front. 

On  another  occasion  a  young  boy  of  Austrian  birth 
was  making  his  way  down  the  Chute.  He  still  limped 
from  a  wound  in  his  leg.  At  the  Vocational  Desk 
the  officer  asked  him: 

"Are  you  an  American  citizen?" 

"Yes,"  replied  the  boy  with  pride.  "A  German 
bullet  made  me  one." 

During  my  visit  to  the  Station  I  overheard  a  char- 
acteristic conversation  between  two  men  who  had 
just  been  evacuated  from  hospital.  They  were  both 
of  German  origin.  One  of  them  asked  the  other: 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  245 

"How  did  you  like  shooting  at  your  German  cou- 
sins ?" 

Quick  as  a  flash  his  companion  answered : 

'They  deserve  all  they  are  getting-  and  I'd  give  it 
to  you  if  you  were  on  the  other  side." 

Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  fighting  American  who 
is  never  so  badly  wounded  but  that  he  wants  to  get 
back  into  the  fray  again. 

All  the  men  assigned  to  this  remarkable  institution 
are  not  sent  away  at  once.  It  becomes  a  sort  of  Rest 
Camp  where  men  get  final  recuperation  (pending  the 
establishment  of  the  great  Recuperation  Camp  now 
in  process  of  construction)  and  where,  with  the  sense 
of  utility  which  marks  our  whole  army  endeavour, 
they  are  made  fit  in  every  way.  You  find  here  a 
School  for  Stenographers,  which  in  ten  days  was 
able  to  provide  the  army  with  fifteen  capable  typists. 
These  men  had  had  previous  experience,  to  be  sure, 
but  many  months  in  the  army  had  dulled  their  capa- 
bility to  a  considerable  extent.  In  the  School,  which 
is  in  charge  of  a  field  clerk  who  was  a  Professor  in 
a  Commercial  College  in  civil  life,  they  got  back  their 
old  time  skill. 

Other  educational  features  include  schools  for 
cooks  and  bakers,  filing  clerks,  horse-shoers,  farriers 
and  carpenters.  There  is  also  a  special  course  of 
instruction  for  Non-Commissioned  Officers  in  the  art 
of  handling  men,  office  detail  and  incidental  details, 
all  of  which  will  start  them  on  the  road  to  a  com- 
mission. 

This  system  of  classification  has  a  bigger  signifi- 


246  S.  O.  S. 

cance  than  merely  adapting  permanently  or  tempora- 
rily unfit  men  to  an  army  job.  It  is  preparedness  for 
the  future.  Nothing  wears  out  men  like  war  and 
no  war  like  this  war.  Out  of  this  process  will  emerge 
tens  of  thousands  of  men  better  equipped  for  peace. 
It  is  making  our  overseas  force  an  army  of  specialists. 

Full  brother  to  the  institution  that  I  have  just  tried 
to  describe  is  the  great  American  "Blighty"  which  is 
now  being  established  nearby.  After  four  years  of 
war  the  average  American  need  scarcely  be  told  that 
Blighty  means  England  for  the  British  Tommy. 
When  one  of  them  gets  a  "blighty"  it  means  that  it 
is  a  sufficient  wound  to  take  him  back  home.  Amer- 
ica will  not  be  able  to  send  her  wounded  men  home 
so  she  will  bring  the  comforts  of  home  to  France. 

When  the  first  American  Casualty  Reports  were 
flashed  by  cable  from  France  to  the  United  States 
there  leaped  from  many  American  hearts  and  homes 
the  swift  and  tremulous  question: 

"What  is  the  army  doing  for  my  wounded  boy?" 

The  huge  Recuperation  Camp  on  the  Loire  is  the 
army's  answer  to  this  question.  Amid  wooded 
groves  and  with  every  convenience  that  makes  life 
worth  redeeming  is  rising  this  sanctuary  where  the 
doughboy  can  come  from  Evacuation  Camp  and 
travel  gratefully  back  to  strength.  The  only  detail 
missing  will  be  the  loving  presence  of  his  family.  It 
will  be  a  sort  of  Army  Elysian  Field  on  Earth.  Aside 
from  the  human  aspect  this  immense  project  is  a 
sound  military  and  economic  enterprise  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  average  cost  in  time,  effort  and  sub- 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  247 

sistence  of  each  individual  evacuation  from  a  hospital 
camp  to  this  haven  of  rest  and  recovery  is  much  less 
than  the  similar  cost  of  individual  replacement  from 
the  United  States.  It  means  New  Men  For  Old 
without  drawing  on  the  reserves  at  home. 

So  far  I  have  dealt  with  the  classification  of  en- 
listed men.  Now  we  come  to  the  kindred  allotment 
of  officers  which  brings  us  to  the  threshold  of  the 
Military  Confessional,  in  many  respects  the  most 
unique  and  original  human  institution  in  the  whole 
A.E.F.  Save  to  those  who  have  found  hope,  faith, 
and  a  new  life  within  its  sympathetic  walls  it  is 
scarcely  known.  Yet  this  establishment  stands  at  the 
cross-roads  of  the  sometimes  tangled  highway  of 
army  life  and  points  the  path  to  fresh  careers.  It  is 
a  living  rebuke  to  the  old  theory  that  War  is  a  brutal 
and  unsympathetic  thing.  I  know  of  no  activity 
which  more  completely  or  unalterably  reflects  the 
ideals  of  the  American  Army. 

With  officers,  as  with  men,  square  pegs  are  often 
stuck  into  the  round  holes.  In  other  words  the  wrong 
man  is  put  on  the  job  arid  makes  a  hash  of  it.  In 
most  other  armies  the  man  found  to  be  temperamen- 
tally unfit  to  lead  troops  or  even  for  some  desk  task 
is  often  sent  home.  He  feels  that  he  is  disgraced 
and  he  frequently  spends  the  rest  of  his  life  eating 
out  his  heart  in  remorse  and  regret.  He  makes  him- 
self a  marked  man  and  his  usefulness  to  society,  in 
most  instances,  ends.  With  the  A.E.F.  such  a  man 
is  given  a  chance  to  make  good.  Regeneration  is  put 
squarely  up  to  him.  The  story  of  how  this  oppor- 


248  S.  O.  S. 

tunity  is  offered  lifts  the  routine  and  the  humdrum 
of  so-called  Reclassification  to  the  realm  of  a  real 
romance.  It  is  genuine  character  building. 

The  first  question  that  naturally  arises  is:  How 
are  these  officers  segregated?  The  process  is  very 
simple.  As  soon  as  it  became  apparent  that  officers 
were  misplaced  in  the  various  Staff  Corps  and  De- 
partments (such  misplacement  was  inevitable  in  the 
hasty  mobilisation  of  a  huge  army),  a  Personnel  Bu- 
reau was  established  at  the  Headquarters  of  the 
Services  of  Supply  at  Tours  to  deal  with  all  problems 
relating  to  officers  physically  or  otherwise  unfit  for 
front-line  work  and  to  give  them  a  chance  elsewhere. 
It  was  placed  in  charge  of  a  Deputy  Chief  of  Staff 
who  by  the  very  circumstances  of  his  birth,  his  whole 
army  experience  and  his  outlook  on  life  was  an  in- 
spired choice.  This  man  is  Lieutenant-Colonel  M.  R. 
Wainer,  whose  story  is  as  picturesque  as  his  post.  He 
was  born  in  Russia  and  was  brought  to  America  as 
a  child  by  his  immigrant  father  who  settled  in  the 
Middle  West.  The  boy  yearned  to  be  a  soldier;  it 
was  impossible  for  him  to  go  to  West  Point  so  he 
enlisted  as  a  private  and  worked  his  way  up  to  a 
commission.  He  has  journeyed  over  the  rough  places 
himself;  he  knows  and  understands  men;  he  was 
therefore  eminently  qualified  to  assume  the  role  of 
Father  Confessor  to  the  Army,  for  such  he  is. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  disciples  gathered  at 
his  door.  They  came  because  a  certain  memorandum 
was  sent  to  all  Bureau  Chiefs.  This  document  so 
completely  dramatised  the  spirit  of  fair  play  and  a 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  249 

square  deal  in  the  army  that  I  am  reproducing  it  in 
full.     Here  it  is: — 

"If  there  is  any  officer  in  your  department,  in  any 
grade  whatsoever,  whom  you  regard  as  incompetent 
that  officer  will  upon  your  recommendation  be  sent 
to  the  Reclassification  Station.  You  can  safely  count 
on  the  fact  that  unless  it  be  by  accident  he  will  not  be 
returned  to  your  department. 

"It  is  not  necessary  in  recommending  this  officer 
for  reclassification  that  you  state  any  reasons  for 
desiring  to  get  rid  of  him,  but  in  order  to  assist  in 
the  reclassification  of  the  officer,  and  to  better  place 
him  in  some  other  field  where  his  services  may  be 
more  useful  to  the  United  States,  every  such  case 
should  be  accompanied  by  a  frank  statement  of  the 
officer's  qualifications  and  disqualifications  so  far  as 
they  have  been  developed  while  serving  in  your  de- 
partment. 

"It  should  be  understood  that  the  policy  of  the 
Commanding  General,  S.  O.  S.,  is  to  make  a  read- 
justment of  personnel  so  as  to  get  the  maximum  ad- 
vantage out  of  every  man's  service.  It  frequently  hap- 
pens that  a  man  who  is  totally  unqualified  for  one 
class  of  work  is  well  qualified  for  another,  and  how- 
ever worthless  an  officer  may  appear  to  be  from  your 
viewpoint  it  may  be  that  his  services  can  be  used  to 
some  advantage  in  another  field." 

This  memorandum  is  the  basis  for  the  adjustment 
of  all  misfit  officers  and  it  has  been  the  mainspring  of 
some  real  human  miracle  working. 

Likewise  a  General  Order  authorises  Division, 
Corps  and  Army  Commanders  to  relieve  such  officers 
as  are  considered  unqualified  for  combat  duty  of  their 
commands,  and  send  them  back  for  Reclassification. 


250  S.  O.  S. 

All  officers  ordered  for  this  reclassification  are  first 
ordered  to  the  Human  Salvage  Station  which  I  de- 
scribed in  a  previous  section  of  this  article.  The 
papers  giving  the  available  data  as  to  their  qualifica- 
tions, civil  occupation  and  the  reason  for  their  relief 
are  then  sent  to  the  Commanding  General  of  the 
Services  of  Supply.  Upon  receipt  of  these  papers 
the  Personnel  Bureau  at  Tours  orders  the  officers  to 
report  there.  Upon  arrival  they  are  required  to  fill 
out  an  Officers  Qualification  Card,  which  is  somewhat 
similar  to  the  Qualification  Record  filled  out  by  the 
enlisted  man  although  it  does  not  include  the  voca- 
tional list.  It  contains  the  usual  personal  informa- 
tion. The  officer  himself  indicates  the  Department 
or  Branch  of  the  Service  in  which  he  thinks  he  would 
be  most  valuable  and  his  qualifications  for  the  work. 
He  must  also  state  what  educational  advantages  he 
has  enjoyed;  what  foreign  languages  he  can  speak, 
and  state  any  previous  army  service. 

Every  officer  who  comes  to  Tours  for  reclassifica- 
tion has  an  interview  with  Colonel  Wainer  which  is, 
in  many  respects,  the  most  important  detail.  Before 
he  enters  the  Confessional  the  Colonel  has  read  the 
man's  record.  He  can  therefore  talk  to  him  with 
knowledge  and  authority.  More  than  one  officer  has 
entered  that  sanctuary  cocky,  even  defiant,  and  pro- 
testing against  what  he  regards  as  an  indignity.  Al- 
ways he  emerges  with  a  smile  on  his  face  and  with 
hope  in  his  heart.  This  big-souled  Deputy  Chief  of 
Staff  who  rose  from  the  ranks  knows  how  to  place 
men.  He  has  before  him  an  up-to-date  list  of  needs 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  251 

in  the  Services  of  Supply  which  grow  so  fast  that 
there  is  always  a  demand  for  officers.  He  is  there- 
fore able  to  assign  men  to  jobs  where  they  are  sorely 
wanted  and  where  the  welcome,  first  born  of  need,  is 
a  stimulus.  The  demand  for  officers,  I  might  add, 
usually  exceeds  the  supply.  No  matter  what  highly 
specialised  experience  is  represented  there  is  invari- 
ably a  place  to  use  it. 

A  complete  card  record  is  kept  of  every  officer  re- 
classified  for  incompetency  or  temperamental  unfit- 
ness.  For  the  purposes  of  army  records  he  is  known 
as  a  "Thrown  Back"  or  a  "T.B."  for  short.  Like 
that  other  and  more  deadly  "T.B." — the  Great  White 
Plague — he  can  usually  be  cured.  This  card  system 
is  itself  a  marvel  of  completeness  and  efficiency.  A 
card  with  a  green  flag  in  the  centre,  for  example, 
signifies  an  officer  reclassified  for  physical  reasons. 
A  card  with  a  blue  flag  in  the  upper  right-hand  cor- 
ner shows  that  it  is  the  brief  biography  of  a  "T.B." 
sent  back  from  the  front  for  temperamental  reasons. 

All  reclassified  officers  are  placed  in  four  divisions. 
Class  I  is  composed  of  those  who,  while  rendering 
satisfactory  service,  have  requested  their  own  trans- 
fer for  personal  reasons.     Class  2  are  Misfits  who 
have  failed  to  render  efficient  service  and  who  are 
not  sufficiently  inefficient  to  justify  an  Elimination  / 
Board.     Class  3   includes  all  officers  for  whom  an  v 
Elimination  Board  has  recommended  a  transfer  to 
another  branch  of  the  Service.     Class  4  is  officers 
whose  discharge  has  been  recommended  by  the  Elimi- 


252  S.  O.  S. 

nation  Board  but  who  are  being  given  another  chance 
to  qualify  somewhere  in  the  army. 

Since  I  have  referred  to  Elimination  Boards  it  may 
be  well  to  explain  their  function,  which  I  will  do  with 
a  concrete  example.  If  the  reclassification  of  an  oifi- 
cer  sent  back  from  the  combat  area  for  inefficiency 
indicates  that  he  holds  too  high  a  rank  for  his  new 
post  in  the  Services  of  Supply  he  is  ordered  before  an 
Elimination  Board  with  a  view  to  his  demotion  to  a 
grade  more  nearly  in  accord  with  his  capability  or 
to  conform  with  his  discharge  if  a  dismissal  is  recom- 
mended. Thus  the  Board's  job  is  to  eliminate  or  to 
appraise  men  and  ranks. 

Some  officers  have  appeared  several  times  before 
Elimination  Boards.  This  procedure  is  in  line  with 
the  policy  outlined  at  General  Headquarters,  which  is 
that  no  officer  shall  be  discharged  from  the  service  of 
the  United  States  except  for  misconduct  or  some  simi- 
lar reasons  and  until  he  shall  have  been  given  every 
possible  opportunity  to  prove  his  fitness  in  any 
capacity.  No  man  was  ever  dismissed  from  the 
A.E.F.  without  good  and  sufficient  reasons  and  only 
after  he  had  had  every  chance  to  redeem  himself  by 
service.  In  this  spirit  of  justice  you  find  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  character  of  the  grave-eyed  man  who  is 
the  Commander-in-Chief  of  our  Armies  abroad. 

Reclassification  often  develops  the  fact  that  men 
fail  in  the  army  merely  because  they  are  put  on  a 
wrong  task.  If  it  is  apparent  that  an  Aviation  officer 
lacks  the  fundamental  qualities  required  in  this  branch 
of  the  Service,  and  his  training,  civil  occupation  and 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  253 

personality  fit  him  for  duty  with  the  Quartermaster 
Corps  he  is  assigned  to  that  immense  domain.  If  he 
proves  his  adaptability  after  a  certain  time,  and  upon 
receipt  of  a  recommendation  from  his  superior  officer 
to  that  effect,  General  Headquarters  vacates  his  Com- 
mission in,  the  Aviation  section  and  re-commissions 
him  in  the  Quartermaster  Corps. 

Wherever  a  man  is  reclassified  for  inefficiency  a 
confidential  letter  is  sent  to  the  Section  Commander, 
or  the  Department  to  whom  he  reports,  explaining 
why  he  is  assigned.  His  case  is  quietly  and  tactfully 
"followed  up"  without  the  slightest  bruise  to  his 
pride.  The  only  men  who  have  ever  failed  to  qualify 
under  this  humane,  sympathetic  and  considerate 
process  are  those  professional  and  confirmed  rotters 
of  whom  the  army  is  well  rid  and  who  have  only 
themselves  to  blame  for  their  downfall. 

In  the  case  of  officers  who  are  reclassified  for 
physical  disability  due  consideration  is  given  to  their 
condition  as  shown  by  the  Medical  Report.  Their 
assignment  depends  upon  their  qualifications  and  the 
duties  they  are  able  to  perform.  After  a  certain 
specified  time  these  officers  may  ask  for  a  re-examina- 
tion. If  they  are  found  to  be  physically  restored 
they  are  placed  on  a  list  as  available  "for  return  to 
combat."  They  go  back  to  the  fighting  job  as  soon 
as  an  officer  becomes  available  to  replace  them  on 
their  present  assignment. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  disclose  a  few  intimate 
chapters  on  the  Roll  of  Salvaged  Honour  recorded 
by  the  reclassification  of  officers  who  have  been  given 


254  S.  O.  S. 

that  second  chance  and  who  have  found  both  glory 
and  compensation  in  their  remaking. 

One  day  a  southern  Colonel  entered  the  Army  Con- 
fessional. He  had  arrived  in  France  in  charge  of 
a  splendid  battalion.  In  the  training  camp  he  gave 
every  evidence  of  skill  and  tact.  The  moment  he 
got  his  troops  up  in  the  combat  area  he  displayed  a 
temper  and  inability  to  handle  men  in  an  emergency 
that  not  only  made  him  conspicuous  but  led  to  his 
being  ordered  back  for  reclassification. 

This  man  was  proud  and  sensitive;  he  had  been  in 
the  National  Guard  for  twenty  years ;  all  this  time  he 
had  dreamed  of  the  hour  when  he  would  lead  troops 
in  actual  battle.  When  that  great  moment  arrived  he 
was  found  to  be  temperamentally  incapable  and  no 
one  realised  it  more  than  he  did.  All  that  he  could 
see  ahead  of  him  were  years  of  poignant  regret  and 
bitterness.  Instead  of  rebuke  he  met  with  kindness; 
where  he  had  expected  reproach  he  found  a  helping 
hand. 

"What  would  you  like  to  do?"  asked  Colonel 
Wainer. 

"I  want  to  do  a  man's  job  somewhere  in  France," 
was  the  reply. 

He  got  his  chance.  At  a  certain  port  much  used 
by  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  you  will  find 
this  Colonel  erect,  buoyant,  full  of  pride  in  his  task 
and  likewise  a  pride  to  the  uniform  he  wears.  He 
has  found  the  social  field  in  which  his  personality 
has  full  swing.  He  is  merely  one  of  many  splendid 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  255 

men  who  have  found  themselves  after  devious  army 
wandering. 

The  Army  Confessional  knows  neither  caste,  creed 
nor  colour.  Not  so  very  long  ago  a  negro  officer 
was  sent  back  from  the  front  as  unsuited  for  combat 
work.  He  was  so  indignant  that  he  had  done  that 
most  rare  of  all  army  things — sent  in  his  resignation. 
Colonel  Wainer  knew  that  the  man  had  character  and 
that  it  only  needed  to  be  pricked  into  life  so  he  asked 
him  point-blank: 

"Are  you  still  loyal  to  your  country  and  your  flag?" 
"Yes,"  responded  the  man,  "of  course  I  am." 
"Then  you  should  be  willing  to  serve  it  in  the  best 
way  that  you  know  how,"  retorted  his  questioner. 

To-day  that  officer  who  was  willing  to  quit  the 
service  in  a  fit  of  pique  and  face  rebuff  at  home  is 
rendering  admirable  service  with  a  Stevedore  regi- 
ment where  his  men  almost  idolise  him  and  where  he 
is  a  credit  to  his  race  and  his  cause. 

These  heart-to-heart  experiences  are  not  without 
their  element  of  humour  as  the  case  of  another  negro 
officer  will  show.  When  Colonel  Wainer  asked  him : 
"What  is  your  trouble?"  he  immediately  replied: 
"Well,  boss,  it's  this  way."  His  first  words  of 
course  showed  that  he  had  failed  in  the  first  principles 
of  military  requirements  and  that  he  was  still  a  waiter 
on  a  Pullman  dining  car.  When  the  proposition  of 
serving  his  country  was  put  squarely  up  to  him  he 
was  ready  and  willing  to  go  before  an  Elimination 
Board  and  serve  in  the  ranks  as  a  private  soldier.  He 
has  been  in  the  thick  of  the  fray  ever  since. 


256  S.  O.  S. 

In  this  Confessional  human  nature  stands  uncom- 
promisingly revealed.  Men  blame  every  one  for  their 
errors  save  the  right  person  who  usually  is  themselves 
Frequently  they  protest  that  it  was  not  inefficiency 
that  brought  them  back  from  the  front  but  because 
they  happened  to  be  in  a  regiment  composed  of  men 
from  various  States  and  that  the  predominating  offi- 
cers in'the  unit  want  subordinates  from  their  own 
Commonwealths  under  them.  These  cases  are  in- 
variably without  foundation  because  investigation 
proves  that  the  officer  himself  is  to  blame  and  that  he 
has  not  given  the  proper  support  and  loyalty  to  his 
Commander.  Such  men  are  assigned  to  duty  in  the 
Services  of  Supply  where,  relieved  from  the  friction 
engendered  by  sensitive  State  pride,  they  have  given 
excellent  accounts  of  themselves. 

Again  and  again  there  are  examples  of  men  merely 
misplaced.  A  young  man  of  twenty-five  who  had 
been  a  successful  commercial  painter  found  himself 
in  a  Field  Battery  and  was  sent  to  a  school  for  in- 
struction and  training  in  the  intricate  and  mathe- 
matical problems  of  artillery.  Of  course  the  work 
was  not  congenial  and  he  was  sent  to  the  rear  for 
classification.  His  proper  station  was  Camouflage,  to 
which  he  was  assigned  and  where  his  special  qualifi- 
cations have  already  won  him  the  highest  praise.  It 
is  a  typical  illustration  of  the  work  that  is  being  done 
daily  in  making  the  army  more  keenly  fit  to  do  its 
great  task. 

When  you  sum  up  the  whole  process  of  reclassifica- 
tion  you  find  that,  as  with  so  many  other  phases  of 


NEW  MEN  FOR  OLD  257 

our  army  organisation,  it  is  building  for  peace  as 
well  as  for  war.  America,  like  England  and  France, 
wfll  face  a  dearth  of  skilled  men  in  industry  when 
the  world  no  more  sees  red.  Competition,  which 
was  merely  part  of  the  orderly  development  of  a 
people  before  the  war,  will  be  a  bitter  battle  for  eco- 
nomic existence  after  the  war.  The  struggle  to  live 
will  be  comparable  to  the  struggle  for  freedom  to-day. 
The  nation  that  can  swiftly  mobilise  both  its  trained 
workers  and  its  trained  leaders  will  have  a  flying 
start  on  all  its  rivals.  The  race  toward  rehabilitation 
will  be  to  the  swiftest.  In  the  classification  and  re- 
classification  of  officers  and  men  is  one  guarantee 
that  the  United  States  will  be  able  to  segregate  quickly 
an  army  of  specialists  which  will  be  a  tremendous 
factor  in  all  the  arts  and  crafts  and  which  will  enable 
us  to  maintain  our  world-wide  industrial  supremacy 
born  of  the  needs  of  conflict. 

Meanwhile  down  in  that  little  room  at  Tours  every 
day  men  are  getting  a  rebirth  of  character,  courage 
and  what  is  equally  important — self-respect.  We  are 
not  only  saving  Human  Tonnage  but  Human  Careers 
as  well. 

It  is  the  Highest  Salvage. 


XI — The  Marvels  of  Army  Organisation 

IF  you  should  arrive  in  France  and  want  to  know 
at  once  the  whereabouts  of  your  son,  brother  or 
friend  from  your  home  town  who  is  with  an 
American  unit  somewhere  in  the  field,  all  that  you 
have  to  do  is  to  get  in  touch  with  the  Central  Records 
Office  of  the  A.E.F.  and  you  can  find  out  as  quickly 
as  the  telegraph  can  transmit  your  inquiry  and  flash 
back  an  immediate  answer.  This  personal  intelli- 
gence system  is  just  one  more  detail  in  the  many-sided 
army  organisation  that  is  a  marvel  of  efficient  co- 
ordination. 

We  have  been  journeying  through  the  major  and 
therefore  spectacular  Services  of  Supply.  Signifi- 
cant as  are  their  activities,  they  only  compromise  a 
comparatively  few  sections  of  that  vast  and  throb- 
bing domain  which  feeds,  equips,  and  unifies  the  over- 
seas forces.  We  can  now  take  up  some  of  the  other 
and  no  less  vital  agencies  which  form  what  may  be 
called  the  subsidiary  corporations  of  the  American 
Business  of  War,  Unlimited.  They  range  from  a 
life  insurance  company  to  the  largest  real  estate  oper- 
ating office  in  the  world.  Included  among  them  is  a 
School  for  Citizenship,  a  complete  Renting  and  Claim 
agency,  a  scientific  Forestry  Service,  a  job-printing 
plant,  even  a  full-fledged  newspaper  of,  by,  and  for 

258 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    259 

the  army.  Each  in  its  way  reveals  a  distinct  phase 
of  highly  developed  administration  that  is  not  only 
essential  to  some  phases  of  the  conduct  of  the  conflict 
and  the  mental  or  physical  upkeep  of  the  men,  but 
conveys  a  useful  and  constructive  lesson  for  peace. 

The  Central  Records  Office  is  typical.  We  put 
the  Card  Index  on  the  Commercial  Efficiency  Map. 
Hence  no  one  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  we  have 
probably  the  largest  one  ever  created  and  comprising, 
when  you  consider  all  ranks,  civilians,  prisoners  of 
war,  and  other  individuals  connected  with  our  over- 
seas forces,  more  than  two  million  names.  This 
monster  and  up-to-the-hour  directory  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  locate  every  person  who  draws  pay  or  prop- 
erty from  the  army  and  to  know  at  a  glance  his  or 
her  past  and  present. 

You  find  this  huge  institution  housed  in  an  im- 
mense structure  in  a  pleasant  town  well  up  in  the 
Intermediate  Section.  Here,  hundreds  of  "Waacs," 
working  as  clerks  and  stenographers,  perform 
the  same  admirable  service  for  the  American  Army 
that  they  do  for  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  in 
that  they  release  fit  and  semi-fit  men  for  the  front  or 
for  service  in  the  Supply  and  Transport  branches. 
At  first  sight  the  establishment  makes  you  think  of 
a  Census  Office,  and  such  it  really  is.  You  hear  the 
machine-gun-like  rattle  of  batteries  of  typewriters; 
you  see  apparently  unending  vistas  of  Card  Catalogue 
Cabinets;  there  is  the  charged  atmosphere  of  swift 
and  orderly  action.  All  these  Cabinets  are  in  groups 
by  Army  Corps,  Divisions,  and  smaller  organisations. 


2<5o  S.  O.  S. 

Each  Cabinet  bears  a  card  which  indicates  the  body 
whose  records  it  contains. 

Central  Records,  as  it  is  more  commonly  known, 
is  technically  charged  with  "maintaining  accurate  and 
complete  records  of  the  entire  personnel  of  the  Ameri- 
can Expeditionary  Forces,  civilians  attached  thereto, 
all  the  American  prisoners  of  war  held  by  enemy 
forces  and  all  enemy  prisoners  of  war  held  by  our 
forces."  This  bald  and  more  or  less  official  outline 
of  responsibilities  covers  a  multitude  of  other  details 
that  extend  from  the  entry  of  the  army  individual  into 
this  world  to  the  final  record  of  his  passing  into  the 
next. 

To  accomplish  all  this  the  office  is  divided  into  vari- 
ous Divisions.  Some  of  these  Divisions  are  so  large 
that  they  in  turn  are  composed  of  three  or  four  sec- 
tions. Each  has  its  separate  and  distinct  function. 
The  Mail,  Record  and  Correspondence  Divisions  will 
illustrate.  It  not  only  opens,  distributes,  and  files 
army  correspondence  for  record,  but  conducts  the 
courier  service  which  daily  conveys  official  documents 
from  one  Service  to  another.  Likewise  it  handles, 
collects  and  replies  to  inquiries  about  the  overseas 
forces. 

The  Card  Index  of  the  army  personnel  is  an  il- 
luminating example  of  how  Central  Records  works. 
Its  main  object  is  to  provide  what  is  known  as  a 
Master  Card  for  every  person  connected  with  the 
A.E.F.  It  is  no  simple  task.  New  units  are  arriving 
in  France  every  day — indeed  every  hour.  They  come 
from  every  part  of  the  United  States.  Men  are  con- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    261 

stantly  dying  from  enemy  action,  disease  or  accident; 
forces  are  being  shifted  from  one  point  to  another, 
and  sometimes  this  movement  involves  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  men  whose  orders  may  come  almost  without 
notice.  On  top  of  this  is  the  fact  that  staffs  are  re- 
organised ;  officers  and  enlisted  men  are  shunted  from 
Service  to  Service:  there  is  incessant  evolution. 
This  eternal  panorama  of  change  must  be  focussed 
and  every  change  recorded  in  the  Army  Directory. 
Now  you  can  see  just  what  a  job  it  is  to  make  the 
army  index  live  and  up  to  date. 

It  is  only  possible  because  every  unit  that  comes 
overseas  begins  to  contribute  to  the  Central  Records 
before  it  embarks.  Just  as  soon  as  an  organisation 
is  ordered  to  France  it  is  required  to  fill  out  a  card 
for  every  member.  At  every  port  in  France  are  so- 
called  Statistical  Officers  who  compare  these  cards 
with  the  passenger  list  of  the  organisation.  If  there 
is  any  discrepancy  the  organisation  is  immediately 
called  upon  to  fill  up  the  gaps.  This  preliminary 
work,  I  might  say,  is  in  charge  of  what  is  known  as 
the  Initial  Information  and  Army  Serial  Number 
Division  of  Central  Records. 

Now  we  can  proceed  to  the  second  stage  of  the 
Census,  which  deals  with  the  army  serial  numbers. 
There  is  a  serial  number  for  every  man  in  the  army. 
The  complete  sequence  of  these  numbers  is  on  the 
books  of  Central  Records.  Let  us  assume  that  John 
Jones  is  number  1,000,000.  As  soon  as  he  reaches 
France  and  the  records  of  his  unit  pass  through  their 
proper  channel  his  name  is  written  alongside  the 


262  S.  O.  S. 

number  1,000,000  in  the  army  register.  Henceforth 
in  all  records  of  John  Jones  overseas  that  number  will 
accompany  him  even  to  the  identity  disc  that  he  wears 
attached  to  a  string  around  his  neck. 

This  brings  us  to  the  preparation  of  the  Master 
Card  which  is  the  compact  and  concrete  record  of  the 
soldier.  This  card  is  eight  inches  long  and  five  inches 
wide.  It  contains  the  full  name,  army  serial  number, 
rank,  organisation,  complete  home  address;  name,  re- 
lationship and  address  of  party  to  be  notified  in  case 
of  emergency;  date  of  birth;  place  and  date  of  en- 
listment or  commission,  date  of  arrival  in  Europe; 
location  in  France  or  elsewhere  abroad;  record  of 
all  transfers  and  changes  which  includes  every  promo- 
tion, capture,  absence  with  or  without  leave  or  fur- 
lough. It  also  states  the  individual's  occupation  be- 
fore the  war.  In  the  lower  right-hand  corner  is  a 
blank  square  that  has  a  grim  and  tragic  significance. 
It  is  the  spot  left  for  the  photograph,  diagram,  or 
description  of  the  place  of  burial. 

On  the  back  of  the  card  and  under  the  head  of  Hos- 
pital Record  is  space  for  the  record  of  every  wound, 
illness,  or  physical  incapacity  of  any  kind.  It  shows 
the  date  of  the  casualty,  the  hospital  where  the  soldier 
was  sent,  the  nature  of  the  illness  or  wound ;  whether 
it  was  slight  or  serious  and  the  hour  and  date  when 
the  trooper  was  discharged  or  died.  When  you  ex- 
amine one  of  these  Master  Cards  there  is  precious 
little  of  vital  importance  about  the  soldier  that  you 
do  not  know.  So  complete  is  this  Card  Index  that 
if  you  asked  to  see  the  record  of  the  Commander-in- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     263 

Chief  you  would  discover  that  it  followed  the  same 
form  as  the  card  of  Bill  Brown,  buck  private  in  the 
X  Division. 

With  the  machinery  at  the  disposal  of  Central  Rec- 
ords it  is  comparatively  easy  to  make  out  the  original 
Master  Card.  The  problem  is  to  keep  this  card 
"live,"  as  they  say  in  business.  This  is  achieved 
through  the  co-operation  of  every  unit  in  the  A.E.F. 
which  is  required  to  submit  all  casualties  and  changes 
in  the  status  of  its  personnel  to  Central  Records  at 
regular  intervals.  From  these  reports  the  various 
changes  are  made  on  the  Master  Card. 

Two  Divisions  of  Central  Records  have  special  and 
poignant  interest.  One  relates  to  Casualties  which  I 
shall  describe  later  on  in  this  book  in  connection 
with  Graves  Registration.  The  other  is  that  section 
which  deals  with  American  prisoners  of  war  held  by 
enemy  forces.  As  is  the  case  with  every  other  detail 
of  the  war,  whether  it  involves  the  capture  of  a  town 
or  the  record  and  treatment  of  prisoners,  the  Allies 
displayed  an  infinitely  larger  spirit  of  justice  and 
fair-play  toward  their  enemies  than  the  enemies 
showed  toward  them.  The  German  military  authori- 
ties took  a  particular  delight  in  intensifying  the  sus- 
pense of  relatives  and  friends  over  the  fate  of  those 
reported  missing.  Only  those  who  have  been  through 
this  long-drawn  anguish  can  realise  what  it  means 
to  be  kept  in  the  dark  concerning  the  whereabouts  of 
loved  ones.  The  phrase  "wounded  and  missing," 
has  whitened  more  hairs  and  racked  more  souls  than 
all  the  definite  news  of  death  in  action  combined. 


264  S.  O.  S. 

Under  the  international  agreement  the  ordinary 
method  of  conveying  information  about  prisoners  of 
war  is  through  the  Red  Cross.  Central  Records  com- 
piled the  names  of  every  German  prisoner  in  our 
hands  and  they  were  sent  expeditiously  to  the  German 
Government  by  way  of  the  accredited  channels.  The 
system  of  the  American  Business  of  War  operates 
alike  for  friend  and  foe.  Hence  you  find  a  Master 
Card  for  every  Boche  in  our  hands.  The  German 
has  not  been  so  considerate  of  our  own  men.  Their 
much-vaunted  efficiency  has  no  heart. 

The  deeper  you  probe  into  the  Business  of  War 
the  more  you  realise  its  intimate  parallel  with  every 
day  commerce.  War  these  days  is  simply  colossal 
merchandising  with  men.  Instead  of  converting  raw 
steel  into  rails  or  girders  it  transforms  the  raw  human 
being  into  a  finished  fighting  man.  To  maintain 
its  output  every  industrial  concern  must  renew  its 
machinery  regularly  to  meet  the  wear  and  tear  of 
incessant  production.  In  the  same  way  the  army 
must  renew  its  fighting  machine,  which  is  the  soldier. 
Every  day  its  ranks  are  thinned  by  enemy  action, 
accident,  disease — any  one  of  the  many  perils  that 
beset  a  huge  force  in  the  field.  This  army  renewal 
is  technically  known  as  Replacement  of  Men,  and  it 
discloses  another  phase  of  scientific  military  organisa- 
tion well  worth  explaining. 

All  new  men  for  the  American  Expeditionary  Force 
whether  they  are  combat  troops  or  in  the  Services  of 
Supply  mainly  come  from  the  same  source,  which  is 
the  draft.  Likewise  the  great  majority  get  their  pre- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     265 

liminary  training  at  home.  The  bulk  are  attached  to 
some  organised  unit  before  setting  sail  for  France. 
Between  eight  and  ten  men  left  the  shores  of  America 
for  the  ports  of  freedom  every  minute.  This  steady 
stream  of  khaki  must  not  only  have  a  destination  but 
it  must  meet  some  definite  need,  be  assigned  to  some 
specific  place,  and  take  its  orderly  place  in  the  fabric  of 
our  fighting  force.  How  is  this  done  ? 

Study  the  Replacement  process  and  you  soon  find 
out.  You  discover  that  with  men  as  with  supplies 
we  depend  on  what  amounts  to  an  automatic  supply, 
which  means  that  gaps  in  the  ranks  are  regularly  filled 
and  that  there  is  always  a  reserve  to  draw  upon.  Re- 
placement deals  with  men  for  the  Front  and  the  Rear. 
Since  this  series  of  articles  is  concerned  solely  with 
the  Services  of  Supply  we  will  stick  as  far  as  possible 
to  our  bailiwick.  It  will  serve  to  explain  the  system, 
first  because  it  is  a  Self -Contained  Empire  and  second 
because  the  troops  comprise  more  than  one-third  of 
our  overseas  army. 

Perhaps  I  can  best  convey  the  scheme  of  Replace- 
ment by  saying  that  it  is  like  banking.  If  you  have 
a  bank  account  and  keep  on  drawing  checks  against 
it  you  exhaust  the  purchasing  value  o*  your  checks 
if  you  do  not  keep  on  depositing  in  the  bank.  The 
army  in  France  is  in  the  same  position  as  the  indi- 
vidual. It  is  constantly  drawing  on  its  human  de- 
posits in  America,  which  are  the  training  camps. 
Since  the  A.E.F.  makes  out  a  check  every  month  in 
the  shape  of  a  big  Replacement  Order  it  follows  that 
Uncle  Sam  in  his  turn  must  have  the  available  trained 


266  S.  O.  S. 

men  ready.  Through  the  draft  he  keeps  on  deposit- 
ing men  in  the  human  bank,  which  is  the  army  at 
home.  Hence  the  army  must  keep  books  on  men  just 
as  it  keeps  books  on  everything  else. 

All  this  means  that  General  Headquarters  in  France 
must  know  exactly  how  many  men  are  available  in 
America  all  the  time.  Hence  you  can  see  up  there 
a  blue  chart  which  shows  every  Division  in  the  Amer- 
ican Army  at  home  and  abroad.  The  units  in  Amer- 
ica are  indicated  by  a  white  square.  The  moment 
that  this  unit  arrives  in  Europe  a  smaller  square  is 
placed  inside.  A  glance  at  this  chart  shows  what 
troops  are  at  home  and  what  are  overseas.  The 
process  which  registers  these  results  is  packed  with 
detail  and  registers  high  tribute  to  our  organising 
genius. 

Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning,  which  means  that 
the  machinery  of  supplying  men  for  France  starts 
with  the  Section  of  the  General  Staff  known  as  Gi 
whose  functions  I  described  in  a  previous  chapter  and 
which  is  the  Great  Army  Provider.  Every  requisi- 
tion for  men,  like  every  requisition  for  food,  clothing, 
engineering  material  or  equipment,  must  pass  across 
its  desks.  Although  the  Gi  at  General  Headquarters 
is  the  senior  Section  and  has  general  authority  in 
requisitioning  men,  the  G4  of  the  Services  of  Supply 
also  has  a  responsible  task  because  every  man  that 
sets  his  foot  on  French  soil  comes  under  its  jurisdic- 
tion first.  Gi  at  G.H.Q.  gets  him  to  France  and  G4 
of  the  S.O.S.  equips,  transports  him  to  his  training 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     267 

area  and  gets  him  tip  to  the  front  where  he  comes 
under  the  authority  of  G.H.Q. 

In  order  to  get  at  the  very  first  step  in  Human 
Supply  we  will  be  obliged  to  step  out  of  the  A.E.F. 
for  a  moment.  It  takes  us  to  a  charming  little  town 
in  France  which  will  be  a  post-war  shrine  for  the 
reason  that  in  a  simple  structure  on  a  side  street  sits 
the  Master  Strategist,  Marshal  Foch,  the  Hammer  of 
the  Hun.  With  him  is  vested  the  Supreme  Unity 
of  Command  of  the  Allied  armies  and  especially  those 
fighting  in  France.  He  moves  the  pawns  on  the 
checker-board  of  life  and  death  because  all  major 
orders  for  troop  movements  emanate  from  him.  It 
is  Foch  who  determines  what  men  are  needed  for 
offensives  and  this  in  turn  determines  the  number  of 
men  required  to  equip,  supply  and  transport  them. 
Thus  the  Human  Demand  so  far  as  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force  is  concerned,  really  begins  with 
Foch  in  conjunction  with  General  Pershing. 

Let  us  say  for  the  sake  of  illustration  that  350,000 
men  comprise  the  monthly  shipment  to  France.  This 
number  includes  two  separate  and  distinct  groups. 
One  is  the  regular,  normal  addition  to  the  army;  the 
other  includes  the  men  needed  to  renew  losses  at  the 
front  or  in  the  rear  and  is  the  so-called  Replacement 
force. 

This  again  brings  us  bang  up  against  the  supreme 
problem  of  the  A.E.F. — Tonnage — which  applies  to 
men  no  less  than  it  applies  to  material.  Every  unit 
in  France  wants  all  the  men  it  can  get.  Normal  in- 
crease and  Replacement  therefore  become  matters  of 


268  S.  O.  S. 

careful  tonnage  allocation  and  Gi  at  G.H.Q.  does 
the  allocating.  First  of  all  both  Front  and  Rear  file 
their  requisitions  of  human  needs.  If  the  army  has 
been  in  a  big  offensive  its  demands  are  greater  than 
usual  because  it  has  had  casualties.  In  the  same  way 
if  vast  new  construction  projects  in  the  Base  or  Inter- 
mediate Sections  have  been  launched  and  must  be 
pushed  through  to  early  completion  there  is  an  ab- 
normal requirement  for  additional  Engineering  units. 
If  the  demand  for  men  at  the  front  has  made  it  neces- 
sary to  send  men  from  the  S.O.S.  up  into  the  fighting 
line  they  must  also  be  replaced.  The  emergencies 
that  beat  about  Supply  and  Replacement  are  many 
and  complicated.  Gi  sifts  out  all  these  needs  and 
does  precisely  what  the  Chief  Quartermaster  does 
with  regard  to  his  tonnage  allotment.  It  makes  up 
a  Priority  Schedule  which  indicates  the  urgency  of 
the  human  shipment.  This  Priority  Schedule  is 
based  on  a  fixed  arrangement  called  "Schedule  of 
Priority  of  Shipments"  and  which  is  the  Convoy 
Bible.  It  is  divided  into  Phases.  Each  Phase  in- 
cludes a  certain  number  of  troops  for  the  Combat 
Army  and  a  certain  number  for  the  Services  of  Sup- 
ply. In  Priority,  as  in  everything  else,  you  ^realise 
how  all-important  the  S.O.S.  is  because  there  can  be 
no  fighting  at  the  front  without  this  unspectacular 
and  bloodless  fighting  in  the  rear. 

One  reason  why  an  up-to-the-hour  check  can  be 
kept  on  Replacements  is  that  for  every  unit  in  France 
there  is  a  chart  which  shows  the  strength  of  the  or- 
ganisation. Let  me  illustrate  with  the  case  of  a  Di- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    269 

vision.  On  the  left-hand  side  is  an  itemised  list  of 
its  various  kinds  of  units.  Alongside  is  a  column  for 
"Authorised  Strength"  and  another  entitled  "Present 
for  Duty."  Extending  from  each  unit  in  the  Division 
such  as  Headquarters,  Infantry,  Artillery,  Supply, 
Engineer  and  Sanitary  Trains  and  so  on  down  the 
line  is  a  horizontal  black  bar  which  indicates  a  scale 
of  strength  up  to  100  per  cent.  If  the  bar  radiating 
from  Infantry,  for  instance,  stops  under  the  number 
90  it  means  that  the  Infantry  in  the  Division  is  90 
per  cent  of  Authorised  Strength.  At  the  bottom  of 
the  sheet  is  a  square  which  indicates  "Replacements 
Required."  If  the  Division  is  at  full  strength  this 
square  remains  white;  if  10  per  cent  Replacement  is 
necessary  it  is  so  indicated.  The  sum  of  these  charts 
in  every  branch  of  the  Service  makes  it  possible  to 
know  the  strength  from  day  to  day  and  the  Replace- 
ments required. 

When  all  requisitions  for  Replacements  are  in,  Gi 
sends  a  blanket  cable  to  Washington  specifying  needs. 
The  various  kinds  of  casual  troops  are  ordered  by 
letter,  which  means  that  if  Gi  cabled  X 15000  it  would 
mean  that  15,000  Engineers  were  required  for  Re- 
placement. In  the  same  way  Y  may  mean  Medical 
Corps,  Z  Ordnance,  and  so  on.  I  am  using  hypothet- 
ical letters.  These  troops  come  over  unassigned.  This 
is  why  they  are  known  as  casuals.  Most  of  them  go 
to  the  great  Clearing-house  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire 
that  I  described  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

Just  as  soon  as  troops  are  at  sea  or  "floated,"  as 
the  army  phrase  goes,  they  are  caught  up  in  a  cease- 


270  S.  O.  S. 

less  system  of  scrutiny.  The  War  Department  ad- 
vises Gi  by  cable  the  precise  number  and  class  of  reg- 
ular organisations  and  the  total  number  of  casuals 
embarked  and  on  the  way.  The  whole  process  now 
becomes  visualised.  If  the  convoy  includes  A  Divi- 
sion which  is  intended  for  B  army  in  the  field  there 
is  already  a  blank  square  for  this  Division  on  the  B 
Army  Chart  of  Organisation  which  hangs  at  General 
Headquarters.  So  long  as  this  Division  is  in  America 
this  space  is  white.  The  moment  it  starts  for  France 
half  of  the  square  is  filled  in  with  red.  As  soon  as  the 
unit  arrives  in  France  the  square  becomes  all  red. 
Meanwhile  Gi  has  advised  the  armies  in  the  field  or 
the  Services  of  Supply  just  what  troops  are  on  the 
way  in  the  same  way  that  the  Quartermaster  Corps 
or  the  Engineering  or  Ordnance  Services  are  advised 
of  the  shipment  of  needed  supplies.  This  complete 
system  of  advice  makes  for  an  efficient  use  of  man- 
power in  the  army. 

The  remarkable  document  known  as  the  Daily  State 
obtains  with  human  as  with  material  needs.  Every 
day  there  is  placed  on  the  desk  of  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  at  G.H.Q.  and  on  the  desk  of  the  Commanding 
General  of  the  Services  of  Supply  at  Tours  a  type- 
written sheet  which  shows  the  total  personnel — Com- 
batant and  Services  of  Supply — in  France;  the  ar- 
rivals during  that  month;  and  the  total  debarked  the 
day  before;  the  monthly  Human  Demand;  what  has 
arrived;  what  is  at  sea,  and  the  balance  to  come. 
Scientific  supervision  can  do  no  more! 

Just  as  soon  as  troops — whether  assigned  to  Com- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    271 

bat  organisations  or  Replacements — arrive  in  France 
they  come  under  'the  administrative  direction  of  64. 
If  they  are  intended  for  the  Services  of  Supply  they 
go  where  the  Commanding  General  S.O.S.  directs; 
if  they  are  headed  for  the  front  they  are  distributed 
by  order  of  G3  which  is  the  Operations  Section  at 
G.H.Q.  and  which  controls  righting.  Combat  troops 
arriving  in  units  go  at  once  to  a  training  area  for 
further  training  or  to  Barracks  or  Billets  for  a  brief 
rest  before  going  up  to  the  Zone  of  Advance. 

Since  we  are  mainly  concerned  with  Replacements 
and  more  especially  Replacements  in  the  Services  of 
Supply  we  can  now  follow  them  through.  All  Replace- 
ments are  casuals  and  are  usually  sent  to  so-called 
Depot  Divisions  which  may  be  anywhere  in  the  do- 
main of  the  S.O.S.  and  which  are  often  training  cen- 
tres. These  Depots  are  for  both  officers  and  men. 
The  men  are  kept  in  Pools  and  are  withdrawn  as 
the  army  needs  or  emergencies  dictate.  Each  Army 
Corps,  it  is  interesting  to  add,  is  required  to  keep  a 
so-called  Replacement  Battalion  which  provides  an 
accessible  and  immediate  source  of  renewal  to  meet 
any  contingency.  This  battalion  is  like  the  reserve 
supply  of  food  and  equipment  kept  at  Railhead.  It 
may  never  be  needed  but  when  it  is  needed  it  is 
wanted  in  a  hurry. 

It  is  vitally  important  that  a  complete  record  be 
kept  of  every  soldier  available.  This  means  that  at 
Tours  you  can  see  one  of  the  most  remarkable  maps 
that  the  war  has  produced.  I  call  it  The  Great  Hu- 
man Map  of  the  A.E.F.,  for  such  it  is.  It  shows 


272  S.  O.  S. 

every  section  in  France  occupied  by  American  troops. 
Red  tags  indicate  Artillery;  white,  Infantry;  grey, 
Mechanical  Transport  Units,  and  so  on.  In  order  to 
distinguish  the  two  grand  Divisions  there  is  a  pink 
mark  on  the  tags  of  S.O.S.  troops  and  a  purple  square 
on  the  cards  of  the  Combat  troops.  On  each  tag  is 
typed  the  brief  biography,  in  terms  of  strength  and 
movement,  of  the  unit  from  the  moment  it  landed  in 
France  up  to  the  present  time. 

Why  is  this  map  necessary?  I  will  tell  you.  When- 
ever Gi  at  G.H.Q.  needs  men  for  Replacement  it  sim- 
ply asks  the  Adjutant  General  of  the  Services  of 
Supply— Colonel  L.  H.  Bash— "What  have  you?"  and 
he  can  immediately  supply  the  need.  He  does  not 
look  at  the  map,  however.  This  map  epitomises  a 
remarkable  Card  Index  which  is  part  of  the  Adju- 
tant General's  office.  There  is  a  card  for  every  unit, 
for  every  Replacement  organisation,  every  officer  and 
every  casual  that  reaches  France. 

The  card  of  the  Division  Replacement  shows  its 
present  whereabouts;  port  of  arrival;  its  various 
movements  in  the  S.O.S. ;  its  strength  in  officers  and 
men,  and  the  name  of  the  Commanding  Officer.  The 
same  sort  of  card  is  kept  for  a  Machine  Shop  Truck 
Unit  or  for  a  Sanitary  Squad.  In  the  case  of  officers 
there  is  a  pink  card  for  each  man.  It  records  the  com- 
plete story  of  his  movements  from  his  arrival  in 
France.  At  the  top  of  the  card  is  a  scale  of  numbers 
from  i  to  12  which  indicates  branches  of  the  Service 
such  as  Infantry,  Cavalry,  Artillery,  Engineers  or 
Medical  Corps.  There  is  also  a  space  to  indicate 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     273 

whether  the  man  is  a  Regular  or  Reserve  officer.  A 
red  marker  is  placed  over  the  number  indicating  the 
officer's  branch  of  the  Service.  If  John  Jones  is  a 
Captain  in  the  Quartermaster  Corps  the  red  marker 
will  be  over  number  8.  If  he  is  a  Regular  officer 
there  will  also  be  a  green  tag.  If  Gi  wants  fifty 
Quartermaster  Corps  Captains  the  Personnel  Officer 
at  Tours  can  see  from  the  number  of  red  tags  over 
8  exactly  how  many  he  has  on  hand.  A  different  col- 
oured marker  is  used  for  each  branch. 

From  these  cards  the  Weekly  Strength  Return  of 
Replacements,  Depot  Divisions  and  Organisations  in 
the  S.O.S.  is  made  up.  It  is  for  the  week  ending 
Wednesday  at  noon  and  is  available  the  first  thing 
every  Thursday  morning.  It  is  a  marvel  of  compact 
and  classified  detail.  In  the  case  of  officers  it  shows 
the  total  by  ranks  from  Second  Lieutenant  up  to 
Colonel  and  also  if  they  are  attached,  detached  or 
absent  for  any  reason.  In  the  case  of  enlisted  men 
it  specifies  grades  from  ordinary  private  up  to  regi- 
mental sergeant  major.  The  Medical  personnel  is  by 
grades  and  ranks  and  includes  Chaplains,  Nurses  and 
Civilians.  Likewise  the  Return  shows  all  serviceable 
and  unserviceable  Mechanical  Transport,  horses,  mules 
and  guns.  As  a  final  human  detail  it  reveals  the  army 
losses  due  to  all  causes  during  the  week  preceding 
and  the  number  of  men  in  training  and  the  branches 
they  represent. 

The  Return  that  I  have  just  described  is  for  the 
troops  in  the  Base,  Intermediate  and  Advance  Sec- 
tions. A  similar  Weekly  Strength  Return  is  made  out 


274  S.  O.  S. 

for  all  troops  in  the  Zone  of  the  Advance.  The  sum 
of  these  Returns  made  out  at  G.H.Q.  makes  the 
Weekly  Strength  of  the  whole  American  Expedition- 
ary Force.  It  is  the  basis  for  much  vital  statistical 
compilation.  At  present  it  is  hardly  a  source  of  aid 
or  comfort  to  the  enemy. 

The  average  man  who  knows  nothing  about  war 
usually  has  an  idea  that  when  troops  go  overseas  they 
live  in  tents  or  barracks  when  they  are  not  fighting. 
If  this  were  true  of  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force  a  part  of  the  army  would  spend  a  large  portion 
of  its  time  building  quarters.  Life  is  too  short  and 
the  march  of  events  too  swift  to  permit  any  such 
luxury.  Besides,  labour  and  material  are  much  too 
valuable.  As  a  result  many  thousands  of  our  troops 
are  billeted  during  the  period  of  their  training  or  rest. 
The  whole  process  of  billeting,  therefore,  is  a  most 
important  and  highly  necessary  detail  in  the  work 
of  the  S.O.S. 

The  mention  of  billets  in  connection  with  American 
troops  discloses  a  picturesque  fact.  In  the  United 
States  it  is  forbidden  by  law  to  billet  troops.  The 
reason  dates  back  to  the  American  Revolution  when 
British  troops  were  quartered  on  the  Colonials  and 
when  this  "hospitality"  roused  such  resentment  that 
the  performance  was  never  repeated  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. It  is  an  interesting  commentary  on  the 
whirligigs  of  time  to  find  British  homes  thrown  wide 
open  to-day  to  American  troops  and  what  is  more 
dramatic,  to  see  the  descendants  of  those  Revolution- 
ary foes  fighting  side  by  side  for  a  common  cause 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    275 

on  the  battlefields  of  France.  The  whole  billeting 
procedure  was  a  new  and  novel  experience  for  the 
doughboy. 

At  Tours  and  as  a  part  of  the  work  of  04  the  whole 
Billeting  Scheme  for  the  A.E.F.  is  in  charge  of 
Colonel  J.  W.  Wright.  Fortunately  for  us  the  bil- 
leting of  troops  is  almost  as  old  as  the  French  Army. 
Nearly  every  town  or  hamlet  in  France  is  billet-broke. 
For  hundreds  of  years  the  cottages  have  housed 
troops.  It  has  been  reduced  to  such  a  science  that 
I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  there  is  a 
billeting  quotation  on  nearly  every  rural  domestic 
establishment  in  France. 

Soldiers  billeted  in  the  houses  of  French  citizens 
are,  to  use  the  expression  adopted  by  the  French 
Courts,  "enforced  guests"  of  the  property  owner  and 
entitled  to  share  the  fire  and  candle  with  the  family. 
All  householders,  with  the  exception  of  legal  custo- 
dians of  public  funds,  widows  and  spinsters  residing 
alone,  and  female  religious  societies,  are  liable  as  part 
of  their  duty  to  the  State  to  receive  these  guests  and 
to  share  their  fireside  with  them.  For  this  the  house- 
holder is  paid  one  franc  (20  cents)  per  night  for  each 
officer  provided  with  a  bed,  20  centimes  (4  cents)  for 
each  non-commissioned,  officer  and  5  centimes  ](i 
cent)  for  each  soldier.  An  additional  5  centimes  is 
paid  for  each  animal  supplied  with  cover.  If  the  ani- 
mals are  picketed  there  is  no  charge. 

For  the  purpose  of  billeting  we  have  divided 
France  into  Areas.  At  Tours  a  map  of  France  sub- 
divided into  these  Areas  hangs  before  Colonel 


276  S.  O.  S. 

Wright's  desk.  Just  as  soon  as  a  Division  is  allotted 
to  an  Area  a  flag  is  stuck  into  its  Area  to  show  its 
location.  The  work  of  billeting  the  unit,  however, 
started  long  before  it  reached  France.  As  soon  as  the 
organisation  sails  from  the  American  port  G4,  which 
is  advised  of  the  sailing,  gets  busy.  It  must  deter- 
mine whether  this  unit  goes  into  barracks  or  billets. 
If  billets  are  decided  on  the  work  of  finding  an  Area 
begins  at  once.  A  Board  of  Officers,  consisting  of  a 
Major  of  the  Medical  Corps,  a  Captain  of  Engineers 
and  a  Captain  of  the  Quartermaster  Corps,  are  sent 
out  to  find  a  suitable  Area.  These  three  officers  repre- 
sent branches  of  the  Services  that  represent  the  most 
urgent  needs  to  be  met.  This  Board  makes  a  careful 
inspection  of  all  sanitary,  water,  and  transportation 
facilities.  The  main  idea  is  to  reduce  any  new  con- 
struction to  a  minimum.  Available  grounds  for  ma- 
noeuvring, drills  and  target  practice  are  also  impor- 
tant considerations.  Thanks  to  many  years  of  expe- 
rience the  Mayor  of  practically  every  French  town 
has  a  Billeting  List,  which  is  a  list  of  houses  and 
barns  available  for  troop  lodging.  The  usual  arrange- 
ment is  to  quarter  the  officers  in  houses  and  the  men 
in  barns. 

When  its  investigation  is  complete  the  Board  makes 
what  is  known  as  a  Billeting  Survey,  which  is  a  com- 
pact resume  giving  the  name  of  the  place;  popula- 
tion; location;  nature  of  terrain;  roads;  railway  load- 
ing and  unloading  facilities;  billeting  capacity  for 
officers  and  men ;  warehouses  available  for  subsistence 
and  forage ;  bathing,  stable,  grazing,  and  garage  space ; 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    277 

available  sites  for  headquarters,  hospitalisation,  avia- 
tion, artillery  parks,  repair  shops,  drill  grounds,  rifle 
ranges,  guard-house,  and  for  any  possible  barracks 
to  be  built. 

If  this  town  or  group  of  towns  (which  is  often  the 
case  in  an  Area)  meets  requirements  it  is  officially 
leased  through  the  agency  known  as  Rents,  Requisi- 
tions and  Claims  (of  which  you  will  hear  more  later 
on)  and  is  assigned  to  a  Division.  Just  as  soon  as 
that  unit  arrives  in  France  a  04  officer  meets  it  at 
the  port  of  arrival  and  escorts  it  to  its  temporary 
home  where  the  American  soldier  gets  his  first  real 
taste  of  French  life  and  likewise  his  initial  encounter 
with  French  language  and  customs. 

While  the  Commanding  General  of  the  Division  is 
the  supreme  authority  in  the  billeting  area  so  far  as 
the  American  troops  are  concerned,  the  formal  stew- 
ardship is  vested  with  what  is  known  as  a  Zone- 
Major,  who  corresponds  to  the  British  Area  Com- 
mandant. If  there  is  more  than  one  town  in  the 
Area  each  one  has  a  Town  Major.  If  you  have  spent 
any  time  in  French  towns  occupied  by  Allied  troops, 
especially  British,  you  know  that  the  phrase  "Town 
Major''  covers  a  multitude  of  jobs  and  trials.  He  is 
supposed  to  be  a  combination  of  a  Chief  of  Police, 
Truant  Officer,  Board  of  Health  and  Inquiry  and 
General  Repository  of  Troubles.  At  Ypres,  for  exam- 
ple, I  have  known  three  different  Town  Majors.  Each 
time  the  post  was  vacated  by  death  because  the  Town 
Major's  office  or  rather  cellar  was  below  the  only 


278  S.  O.  S. 

building  left  with  standing  walls  and  under  an  almost 
incessant  shell  fire. 

The  best  laid  billeting  plans,  like  those  well-laid 
plans  of  mice  and  men,  often  go  astray.  If  an  Area 
is  selected  before  the  crops  are  harvested,  for  exam- 
ple, we  sometimes  lose  as  high  as  forty  per  cent  of 
space  because  the  French  must  use  the  barns  for  the 
products  of  their  fields.  In  such  a  case  we  are  com- 
pelled to  build  quarters.  Again,  when  the  avalanche 
of  refugees  came  pouring  down  from  the  north  after 
the  great  German  offensive  of  last  spring  our  soldiers 
voluntarily  surrendered  whole  sections  of  shelter  to 
these  unhappy  human  straws  caught  up  in  the  whirl- 
wind of  war. 

When  you  touch  the  billeting  of  troops  you  reach 
the  authority  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  business 
institutions  in  the  whole  A.E.F.  Technically  known 
as  the  Renting,  Requisition  and  Claims  Service  or, 
as  it  is  called  for  short,  "R.R.  &  C,"  it  is  charged 
with  a  combination  of  routine  and  responsibility  that 
makes  it  distinct  among  army  organisations.  Through 
its  many-sided  operations  you  discover  that  the  Amer- 
ican Army  abroad  is  probably  the  largest  real  estate 
operator  in  the  world  and  conducts  one  of  the  largest 
known  Claims  agencies.  It  is  a  unique  development 
of  the  war  and  of  the  enormous  task  of  providing  all 
the  land  and  buildings  of  every  kind  and  description 
needed  by  our  forces  in  France.  Yet  this  immense 
task,  involving  incessant  negotiations  with  a  Govern- 
ment and  a  people  who  are  sticklers  for  minute  de- 
tails and  where  the  humblest  cottage  is  the  proverbial 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    279 

"every  man's  castle,"  has  been  accomplished  with  the 
minimum  of  friction. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  delicacy  of  the  work  of 
this  Service  you  must  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that 
our  army  is  operating  in  one  of  the  most  densely 
populated  and  highly  cultivated  countries  in  the  world 
where  every  foot  of  land  is  utilised  and  nothing  is 
wasted.  No  one  realised  this  sooner  or  better  than 
General  Pershing  himself  who,  as  early  as  August, 
1917,  issued  a  General  Order  which  contained  the 
following  injunction: 

"The  intense  cultivation  of  the  soil  in  France  and 
the  conditions  caused  by  the  war  make  it  necessary 
that  extreme  care  be  taken  to  do  no  damage  to  pri- 
vate property.  The  entire  French  manhood  capable 
of  bearing  arms  is  in  the  field  fighting  the  enemy. 
Only  old  men,  women  and  children  remain  to  culti- 
vate the  soil.  It  should  therefore  be  a  point  of  honour 
with  each  member  of  the  American  Army  to  avoid 
doing  the  least  damage  to  any  property  in  France. 
Such  damage  is  much  more  reprehensible  here  than 
in  our  own  country.  Those  who  may  offend  in  this 
respect  will  be  brought  to  trial  under  the  8o,th  Article 
of  War,  and  commanding  officers  will  see  that  prompt 
reparation  is  made  under  the  provisions  of  Article 
105,  even  though  the  damage  does  not  exceed  a  single 
franc." 

The  Service  is  in  charge  of  a  General  Director, 
Colonel  John  A.  Hull,  the  Judge  Advocate,  while 
there  is  a  Chief  Requisition  Officer,  Lieutenant  Colo- 
nel H.  T.  Klein,  and  also  a  Chief  Claims  Officer, 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Robert  Burkham,  who  are  all  lo- 


280  S.  O.  S. 

cated  at  Tours — the  Headquarters  of  the  Services  of 
Supply.  The  work  in  the  field  is  divided  into  various 
sections  each  one  with  a  Section  Officer.  Our  friend 
the  Zone  Major  operates  in  connection  with  these 
officials.  With  each  Division  of  the  American  Army 
there  is  also  a  representative  of  the  Service  known  as 
the  R.R.  &  C.  Officer. 

The  Renting  is  of  course  a  very  simple  matte r,  of 
temporarily  acquiring  property  by  lease  and  involves 
a  bargain  mutually  satisfactory  to  lessor  and  lessee. 
It  is  when  you  get  into  the  complicated  matter  of 
Requisitions  that  you  strike  the  first  snag.  The  Amer- 
ican Army  requires  thousands  of  buildings  of  all 
kinds  from  barns  to  immense  docks  and  warehouses. 
The  French  property  owner  is  no  more  anxious  to 
have  his  property  taken  for  public  use  than  the  aver- 
age American  citizen  would  be.  If  the  American  has 
any  political  pull  he  will  use  it  to  the  utmost  to  avoid 
having  his  establishment  commandeered.  So,  too,  with 
the  French. 

In  order  to  facilitate  this  work  the  French  Govern- 
ment has  granted  to  the  American  Government  the 
right  to  requisition  French  property  in  the  event  that 
a  satisfactory  lease  cannot  be  obtained.  It  is  an 
extraordinary  instance  of  the  confidence  that  one  na- 
tional administration  reposes  in  another  and  the  very 
consciousness  of  this  power  has  been  a  tower  of  vir- 
tue for  all  American  officers.  It  means  that  they  will 
go  to  the  very  last  limit  of  patience  and  forbearance 
to  avoid  employing  this  weapon.  The  co-operation 
between  the  French  Government  and  its  citizens  is 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     281 

such  that  the  voluntary  lease  is  the  rule  and  the  requi- 
sition is  the  exception. 

The  infinite  detail  attached  to  voluntary  leasing  can 
be  understood  when  I  tell  you  that  the  enlargement  of 
one  Training  Area  alone  involved  the  acquisition  of 
fifteen  hundred  separate  pieces  of  property.  But  this 
was  an  infant  performance  compared  with  the  propo- 
sition that  faced  us  in  the  securing  of  the  land  for 
the  largest  Base  Supply  Depot.  It  is  eight  square 
miles  in  area  and  eighteen  thousand  parcels  were  in- 
volved. This  could  only  happen  in  a  country  Lke 
France  where  the  farmer  is  able  to  work  a  miracle 
with  a  square  yard  of  earth. 

Wherever  property  is  acquired  by  lease  or  other- 
wise the  value  of  the  crops  and  the  damage  to  the 
land  must  be  estimated  together  with  the  determina- 
tion of  a  proper  compensation  for  occupancy.  The 
method  of  procedure  in  the  more  important  cases  is 
to  ask  the  French  Mayor  to  call  the  various  property 
owners  together.  The  matter  is  explained  by  the 
American  Officer  in  charge  of  the  negotiations  who 
expresses  the  desire  of  the  United  States  Government 
to  deal  fairly  with  the  land-owners.  It  not  infre- 
quently happens  that  after  amicable  adjustment  has 
been  reached  a  farmer  will  say  as  the  matter  is  con- 
cluded: "If  my  country  can  trust  our  Allies  so  can  I." 

With  the  Department  of  Claims  you  touch  French 
human  nature  at  its  most  sensitive  spot  for  you  invade 
the  purlieus  of  the  pocket-book.  The  A.E.F.,  like  the 
B.E.F.,  has  discovered  that  a  damage  claim  is  a 
Frenchman's  middle  name.  Since  this  Section  investi- 


282  S.  O.  S. 

gates  and  settles  all  claims  for  injury  to  persons  and 
property  caused  by  actions  and  omissions  of  Amer- 
ican soldiers  its  docket  is  pretty  full.  They  include 
claims  for  damages  to  billets,  land,  persons,  and  claims 
arising  out  of  theft,  depredations,  fires,  acts  of  war  or 
by  A.E.F.  vehicles.  Congress  wisely  decided  that  they 
should  be  paid  in  accordance  with  the  French  military 
law  and  practice. 

The  Chief  Claims  Officer  has  authority  to  settle 
claims  amounting  to  not  over  10,000  francs,  while 
the  Section  Officer's  authority  extends  over  claims 
which  do  not  exceed  500  francs  in  amount.  The  Zone 
Major's  authority  is  limited  to  claims  of  250  francs 
or  less.  Claims  involving  not  more  than  100,000 
francs  must  have  the  approval  of  the  Commanding 
General  of  the  Services  of  Supply  while  claims 
amounting  to  over  100,000  francs  are  approved  by 
the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  A.E.F. 

The  great  majority  of  claims  are  for  comparatively 
small  items  which  never  fail  to  amaze  the  American 
soldier.  What  seems  to  be  a  trifling  injury,  such  as 
tearing  out  of  a  manger  in  a  stable,  is  a  real  and 
vital  loss  to  the  frugal  French  peasant  whose  lot  this 
last  four  years  has  not  been  an  easy  one.  Besides, 
lumber  is  extremely  scarce  in  France  and  very  diffi- 
cult for  the  farmer  to  obtain.  Furthermore,  the 
French  peasant  does  business  on  a  very  small  scale 
and  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  most  of  the  land 
cultivation  has  been  done  by  women,  old  men  arid 
young  boys. 

Hence  the  flood  of  small  claims  that  almost  inun- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     283 

dates  the  R.R.  &  C.  involves  items  that  would  almost 
be  regarded  as  a  joke  by  the  American  farmer. 
Among  the  claims  for  small  injuries  are  for  broken 
window-panes,  injury  to  paint,  broken  plaster,  and 
door-knobs.  Not  an  infrequent  cause  of  complaint  is 
the  loss  of  a  key.  The  removal  of  this  highly-useful 
but  not  entirely  indispensable  article  is  never  over- 
looked. The  French  peasant,  however,  regards  a  key 
as  important  and  valuable  as  a  title  deed  to  his  prop- 
erty; a  state  of  mind,  I  might  add,  that  is  entirely 
shared  by  the  owners  of  French  hotels.  I  have  known 
of  a  hotter  row  being  kicked  up  over  the  loss  of  a 
key  in  a  big  French  hotel  than  over  the  theft  of  a 
thousand  dollars  in  America. 

Injury  to  French  land  involves  two  separate  and 
distinct  causes.  One  is  damage  resulting  from  the 
immediate  necessities  of  war — the  so-called  "faits  de 
guerre3' — for  which  no  compensation  is  paid,  and  in- 
jury which  comes  about  in  the  natural  course  of  care- 
less event.  Of  course  human  nature,  no  less  active 
with  the  French  than  any  other  nationality  similarly 
placed,  is  very  apt  to  ascribe  all  losses  to  the  second 
cause  and  therein  lies  the  most  frequent  subject  of 
controversy.  Indeed  it  is  extremely  difficult  some- 
times to  convince  the  Frenchman  that  whatever  has 
happened  to  his  goods  or  his  chattels  was  the  fault 
of  the  god  of  War  instead  of  the  god  of  Man. 

A  unit  was  once  encamped  on  a  farm  near  the  front. 
Its  mules  were  picketed  nearby.  Suddenly  and  with- 
out warning  a  number  of  German  shells  dropped  on 
the  camp.  The  animals  were  turned  loose  and  they 


284  S.  O.  S. 

beat  a  retreat  that  was  more  strategic  than  orderly. 
Being  by  nature  destructive  beasts,  they  took  the 
shortest  cut  to  the  rear,  which  happened  to  be  through 
highly  cultivated  gardens  and  orchards  where  they 
played  havoc.  With  great  difficulty  the  farmer  was 
convinced  that  the  unfortunate  action  was  an  act  of 
War  and  therefore  he  could  receive  no  compensation. 

The  real  humours  of  war  are  found  in  these  French 
claims  for  comparatively  small  damages.  A  well- 
meaning  cow  died  from  eating  camouflaged  grass 
meant  to  deceive  the  Hun  but  not  the  unsuspecting 
herds  of  France.  Her  owner  filed  a  claim  which 
proved  that  the  beast  was  an  innocent  bystander  of 
War  and  which  was  paid.  Another  cow  attracted 
by  the  remnants  of  grass  on  a  bombing  range  allowed 
either  her  curiosity  or  her  hunger  to  get  the  better  of 
her  animal  discretion  and  died  as  a  result  of  eating 
the  grass,  which  had  been  poisoned  by  the  contents  of 
the  grenades  used  on  the  range.  She  was  also  put  into 
the  innocent  bystander  class. 

All  damage  by  American  student  aviators  who  are 
now  flying  all  over  France  and  who  have  sometimes 
to  descend  unceremoniously  in  a  field  under  cultiva- 
tion, are  paid  by  the  A.E.F.,  as  are  claims  for  the 
considerable  injuries  resulting  in  the  Training  Areas 
from  trench-digging,  bomb-throwing,  rifle-practice 
and  also  practice  with  machine-guns  and  heavy  artil- 
lery. The  French  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
our  horses  and  mules  are  highly  discriminating  when 
they  go  out  to  pasture,  because  they  always  select  the 
best  gardens  and  orchards.  This  straying  into  fertile 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     285 

fields  proves  to  be  rather  an  expensive  item  for  Uncle 
Sam. 

Fires  constitute  a  large  and  important  part  of  the 
work  of  the  Army  Claims  Agency.  The  reason  is 
interesting  especially  when  these  fires  happen,  as  they 
often  do,  in  billets.  The  French  fireplaces  have  been 
successfully  used  for  hundreds  of  years  but  the 
Frenchman's  fire  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
American's  fire.  These  tiny  French  hearths  were 
never  constructed  for  the  fires  which  the  average 
American  likes  and  builds.  The  net  result  is  that 
they  start  such  a  roaring  conflagration  that  the  whole 
house  is  involved.  The  investigation  of  a  French 
fire  is  a  most  elaborate  ceremony.  Among  the  docu- 
ments which  must  be  produced  are  the  title  papers  to 
the  property,  the  insurance  policy,  the  birth  certificate 
of  the  property  owner  and  the  contract  of  marriage 
upon  which  the  property  rights  to  the  wife  may  de- 
pend. 

No  branch  of  the  R.R.  &  C.  Service,  however,  is 
confronted  with  more  complications  than  that  which 
deals  with  the  investigation  and  settlement  of  claims 
for  damages  done  by  American  vehicles  to  citizens  and 
property  on  the  streets  and  roads  of  France.  Com- 
pared with  our  highways  the  average  French  street 
in  the  small  towns  where  many  of  our  troops  are 
quartered  is  an  alley.  The  French  citizens  regard  it 
as  an  inalienable  right  to  walk  in  the  street  rather 
than  on  the  sidewalk.  Quite  naturally  they  come  in 
more  or  less  frequent  painful  contact  with  the  heavy 
American  trucks  that  are  constantly  on  the  move.  The 


286  S.  O.  S. 

doctrine  of  contributory  negligence  which  frequently 
is  a  complete  defence  in  America  does  not  obtain  in 
France.  Hence  we  have  many  street  accident  claims 
to  pay. 

The  French  have  a  high  sense  of  appreciation  of 
our  justice  and  generosity  in  this  matter  of  damage 
claims.  Let  it  be  said  to  their  credit  that  they  some- 
times do  not  present  a  bill  of  injury.  Not  long  ago 
the  following  letter  was  received  by  the  Commanding 
General  of  the  Services  of  Supply  from  a  father 
whose  daughter  had  been  injured  by  one  of  our  big 
motor  trucks: 

"In  the  name  of  my  daughter,  victim  of  an  accident 
caused  by  an  auto  truck  in  the  service  of  your  army; 
in  the  name  of  her  late  husband  who  died  for  France 
with  decorations  by  order  of  the  army;  of  his  daugh- 
ter and  my  whole  family;  considering  the  correct  at- 
titude and  considering  the  painful  position  of  the 
military  auto-driver,  under  the  strict  lash  of  military 
discipline,  I  have  the  honour  to  plead  in  his  favour 
for  your  kind  indulgence. 

"After  the  pain  and  suffering  resulting  from  the 
accident  which  I  hope  is  only  temporary  it  will  be 
profoundly  painful  to  us  to  think  that  a  brave  soldier 
who  came  to  defend  us,  may  be  punished  severely 
for  an  act  for  which  he  is  not  to  blame. 

"Trusting  in  your  kindness,  commander,  will  you 
receive  kindly  the  assurance  of  our  high  regard." 

All  this  difficult  work  requires  a  highly  specialised 
training,  partly  legal  but  mostly  human.  In  order  to 
secure  the  necessary  personnel  a  school  has  been  estab- 
lished at  Tours  to  equip  men  for  the  R.R.  &  C.  Serv- 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     287 

ice.  It  is  held  in  a  whitewashed  room  in  the  old 
French  Barracks.  More  than  one  student  bears  on 
his  right  sleeve  the  chevron  that  proclaims  "wounded 
in  action."  Typical  of  the  contrasts  that  war  creates 
this  institution  is  in  charge  of  a  former  lecturer  at 
the  Harvard  Law  School.  Stranger  still  is  the  situa- 
tion which  daily  finds  American  officers,  lawyers  by 
profession,  sitting  as  quasi  courts  in  equity  through- 
out France  and  administering  French  laws  to  French 
people  so  that  justice  shall  prevail.  In  this  war — as 
in  no  other — everything  is  possible  and  nothing  is 
surprising. 

When  posterity  makes  its  appraisal  of  the  American 
effort  in  France  no  detail  will  probably  come  in  for 
a  larger  degree  of  wonder  and  admiration  than  the 
immense  amount  of  construction  reared  by  these  alien 
hands  in  a  foreign  land.  The  A.E.F.  has  been  a 
Master  Builder.  The  whole  task  of  army  construc- 
tion comprises  a  branch  of  the  American  Business  of 
War  that  expresses  American  energy  and  enterprise 
to  a  degree  not  surpassed  in  any  other  Service  of 
Supply.  Uncle  Sam  is  a  Boss  Contractor  and  on  a 
stupendous  scale.  He  runs  a  building  business  pre- 
cisely like  any  of  the  great  construction  corporations 
in  New  York  or  Chicago.  The  only  difference  is  that 
while  a  private  concern  must  solicit  trade,  the  A.E.F. 
gets  all  it  wants  without  the  asking. 

At  the  head  of  this  work  is  Brigadier  General  Edgar 
Jadwin,  Director  of  Construction  and  Forestry,  whose 
office  in  that  now-famous  quadrangle  at  Tours  is  the 
nerve-centre  of  the  army  building  that  ranges  from 


288  S.  O.  S. 

the  construction  of  an  immense  dock  at  a  Base  port 
up  to  the  erection  of  a  temporary  storage  shed  in  the 
Zone  of  the  Armies.  Under  him  is  an  army  of  more 
than  100,000  men,  including  thousands  of  foresters. 
He  could  build  a  fair-sized  city  almost  overnight;  no 
specialised  task  from  a  bakery  to  a  cold  storage  plant 
is  outside  the  capabilities  of  this  host  which  toils 
with  hammer  and  saw  with  the  same  fidelity  as  the 
man  who  fights  with  guns.  In  a  previous  article  I 
told  the  story  of  some  of  the  achievements  registered 
by  the  army  engineers.  It  only  remains  to  show  the 
business  side  of  the  organisation  which  is  a  striking 
lesson  in  centralisation. 

Despite  the  myriad  construction  enterprises  con- 
stantly underway  throughout  France  there  is  a  "fol- 
low-up" system  which  keeps  track  of  every  undertak- 
ing. In  what  is  known  as  a  File  of  Projects,  General 
Jadwin  maintains  an  up-to-date  record  of  all  work 
under  way.  Each  piece  of  work  is  on  a  separate  sheet 
and  whether  it  is  a  dock,  warehouse  or  hospital  he  can 
tell  at  once  how  far  it  has  advanced  and  what  remains 
to  be  done.  This  results  from  the  fact  that  his  Service 
is  charted  from  Director  down  to  a  gang  cutting  tim- 
ber in  a  far-away  forest.  He  has  a  Chief  Engineer 
in  every  one  of  the  Sections  in  France.  Each  Chief 
has  his  own  organisation,  which  is  a  link  in  the  army 
Construction  chain.  If  a  dock  is  to  be  built  in  Base 
Section  Number  One  the  plans  and  specifications  are 
sent  to  the  Chief  Engineer  of  that  Section  who  is 
charged  with  execution.  It  is  up  to  him  to  see  it 
through.  He  makes  d^ily  and  weekly  reports  of 


BRIG.  GEN.  EDGAR  JADWIN  BRIG.  GEN.  M.  L.  WALKER 


COLONEL  W.  J.  WILGUS  BRIG.  GEN.  G.  VAN  HORN  MOSELEY 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     289 

progress,  which  enable  the  Director  to  keep  his  File 
of  Projects  live.  When  I  was  in  Base  Section  Num- 
ber Two  exactly  one  thousand  projects  of  one  kind 
or  another  were  under  way. 

This  Project  File,  however,  is  only  one  detail  in 
the  plan  of  organisation.  The  whole  scheme  of  army 
construction  is  visualised  on  the  huge  Map  of  Con- 
struction which  hangs  in  General  Jadwin's  office  and 
which  shows  every  piece  of  work  under  way.  Each 
kind  of  job  is  indicated  by  a  colour.  A  hospital  is 
indicated  by  a  tan  square;  a  railway  yard  by  a  white 
one ;  a  Supply  Depot  in  straw ;  a  Camp  Site  in  blue ; 
an  Aviation  Camp  in  red,  and  so  on. 

In  the  same  way  each  type  of  work  has  its  own 
chart.  What  is  known  as  the  Hospitalisation  Chart  is 
one  of  the  marvels  of  system.  It  shows  in  waves  and 
in  thousands  of  beds  (all  hospitals  are  built  in  terms 
of  bed-capacity)  how  the  enormous  system  of  Amer- 
ican Hospitalisation  in  France  is  expanding  by  leaps 
and  bounds.  A  line  in  blue,  for  example,  shows  the 
bed  space  available  in  Base  hospitals  and  hotels ;  green 
indicates  the  bed  space  in  camp  hospitals,  while  mauve 
locates  hospital  buildings  under  way.  The  A.E.F.  fol- 
lows the  rule  of  having  ten  hospital  beds  for  every 
hundred  men  oversea.  Our  hospital  construction,  or 
Hospitalisation  as  it  is  known,  is  so  standardised  that 
we  build  in  regular  units  of  a  thousand  beds  and  have 
been  known  to  erect  three  or  four  of  these  in  a  single 
day. 

All  construction  plans  and  specifications  with  the 
exception  of  those  for  Railway  Transportation  are 


290  S.  O.  S. 

prepared  by  a  large  force  of  draughtsmen  which  is 
part  of  the  stafTbf  the  Director  of  Construction  and 
Forestry.  The  plans  for  railway  projects  are  drawn 
under  the  direction  of  the  Director  General  of  Trans- 
portation, for  whom  General  Jadwin  acts  as  Consult- 
ing Engineer. 

This  mighty  construction  not  only  requires  an  army 
of  toilers  but  an  immense  amount  of  lumber.  This 
brings  us  to  the  second  phase  of  General  Jadwin's 
work.  Obviously  it  is  impossible  to  transport  the 
millions  and  millions  of  feet  of  timber  from  the 
United  States.  Tonnage,  as  you  have  learned,  is  the 
supreme  problem  of  the  A.E.F.  and  must  be  utilised 
for  material  that  cannot  be  obtained  abroad.  The 
army  therefore  decided  to  produce  its  own  timber  by 
cutting  it  in  France.  This  has  led  to  the  organisation 
and  development  of  a  complete  Forestry  Service  which 
is  mobilised  with  the  same  scientific  care  as  any  other 
branch  of  the  army. 

In  the  Forestry  regiments  you  can  find  "lumber 
jacks"  who  have  made  the  chips  fly  in  the  forests 
of  Wisconsin,  Maine,  Washington,  Michigan,  Ore- 
gon, Louisiana  and  Alabama.  They  are  a  hardy,  sea- 
soned, weather-beaten,  competent  lot  and  have  ren- 
dered a  service  comparable  to  that  of  the  locomotive 
engineers  and  firemen  who  left  cabs  and  tenders  on 
the  American  systems  to  drive  the  army  iron  horses 
in  France. 

By  arrangement  with  the  French  Government  we 
have  acquired  nearly  two  hundred  French  forests 
where  you  can  hear  the  zip  of  American  saws  and  the 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION     291 

rattle  of  the  machinery  of  portable  American  saw- 
mills that  have  been  brought  to  France  "knocked 
down,"  and  set  up  wherever  they  are  needed.  One 
of  these  saw-mills  cut  20,000  feet  of  lumber  in  ten 
hours.  A  battery  of  five  of  them  cut  120,000  feet 
in  two  ten-hour  shifts. 

All  these  forests  are  obtained  by  what  is  known  as 
the  Acquisition  Section  of  the  Forestry  Service.  The 
French  have  a  peculiar  affection  for  their  trees  and 
they  are  the  best  foresters  in  the  world.  It  makes  them 
weep  to  see  the  magnificent  stretches  of  woodland  sac- 
rificed for  army  use.  But,  as  a  Frenchman  said  to  me 
in  discussing  this  matter:  "We  would  rather  have 
our  forests  cut  down  scientifically  by  the  Americans 
in  the  cause  of  freedom  than  to  have  them  perma- 
nently blackened  and  destroyed  by  German  shells." 
So  great  is  the  French  regard  for  their  forests  that 
a  group  of  French  foresters  accompanies  each  Amer- 
ican Forestry  gang  and  marks  the  trees  to  be  cut. 
These  groups  of  trees  are  known  as  coupes,  which  is 
the  French  for  trees  to  be  cut.  Every  American  who 
works  in  a  French  forest  in  conjunction  with  the 
French  experts  will  go  back  home  better  equipped  for 
his  job  if  he  expects  to  be  a  woodman.  No  better 
propaganda  for  the  conservation  of  our  natural  re- 
sources and  more  especially  our  forests  can  be  imag- 
ined. You  get  some  idea  of  the  significance  of  this 
forestry  work  when  I  tell  you  that  we  need  or  will 
need  for  twelve  months  more  than  one  billion  feet  of 
boards.  Already  we  are  cutting  30,000,000  feet  a 


292 


s.  o.  s. 


month  and  the  number  of  our  saw-mills  is  rapidly 
nearing  the  one  hundred  mark. 

Construction  is  only  one  consumer  of  army  wood  in 
France.  The  army  must  be  kept  warm,  which  means 
that  for  the  twelve  months  between  July  ist,  1918, 
and  June  3Oth,  1919,  the  Quartermaster  Corps — 
which  provides  fuel  for  the  A.E.F. — will  require 
1,250,000  tons  of  cord  wood.  One  cord  equals  two 
tons.  The  wood  for  fuel  is  cut  under  the  direction 
of  the  Chief  Quartermaster  and  at  the  time  I  write 
is  being  done  in  the  Advance  Section  by  more  than 
ten  thousand  men  who  include  nearly  two  thousand 
civilian  labourers;  the  others  are  American  soldiers. 

A  study  of  the  American  Business  of  War  would 
be  incomplete  without  a  look  at  that  highly  necessary 
detail  in  the  conduct  of  a  corporation,  which  is  the 
pay  roll.  In  addition  to  many  war-born  distinctions 
Uncle  Sam  has  become  one  of  the  largest  employers 
in  the  world  with  a  box-office  second  to  none.  Al- 
though the  doughboy  has  no  worries  about  the  High 
Cost  of  Living  so  far  as  France  is  concerned  (he  is 
fed  like  a  fighting  cock)  he  likes  to  have  money  in 
his  pocket  and  his  grateful  Government  sees  that  he 
gets  it  promptly  no  matter  if  he  is  fighting  at  the 
front  or  serving  in  the  rear. 

The  principal  army  disbursing  in  France  is  done 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Chief  Quartermaster,  who 
pays  all  troops  except  those  in  the  Engineer,  Signal, 
Medical,  Ordnance  and  Air  Services.  He  also  pro- 
vides the  money  for  billets,  for  subsistence,  clothing 
and  gasolene  bought  in  Europe  and  for  the  rental  of 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    293 

the  French  telegraph  wires  that  we  lease.  The  Chief 
Disbursing  Officer,  Lieutenant-Colonel  C.  B.  Eckels, 
handles  more  money  than  most  big  banks.  Although 
he  deals  in  millions  he  never  sees  any  of  the  actual 
cash.  In  September  alone  the  amount  of  money  that 
passed  through  his  office  represented  more  than  $100,- 
000,000.  Of  course  this  money  is  not  sent  from  the 
United  States.  A  very  simple  system  of  exchange  of 
national  credits  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  always  have 
available  funds. 

Every  American  soldier  is  paid  in  the  money  of  the 
country  in  which  he  is  serving  and  in  cash.  If  a 
doughboy  in  France  is  unmarried,  carries  no  war  risk 
insurance  and  has  not  subscribed  on  the  instalment 
plan  for  a  Liberty  Bond,  he  gets  $33  a  month,  or, 
based  on  the  rate  of  exchange  at  the  time  I  write,  188 
francs  and  10  centimes.  Wherever  a  soldier  has  allot- 
ments, whether  for  family,  Liberty  Loan  or  insurance, 
this  amount  is  first  deducted  from  his  pay  and  he  gets 
the  proceeds.  The  men  are  paid  once  a  month  by 
so-called  Disbursing  Quartermasters.  If  a  man  is  ill 
or  wounded  in  a  hospital  the  money  is  brought  to  him. 

With  pay  as  with  everything  else  the  American  sol- 
dier gets  the  benefit  of  the  last  word  in  army  con- 
venience. This  means  that  recently  we  have  intro- 
duced a  new  and  compact  Individual  Pay  Record 
Book  which  is  a  substitute  for  the  old-time  and  cum- 
bersome army  pay  roll  which  the  men  had  to  sign. 
If  he  were  wounded  or  lost  he  frequently  missed  his 
pay  for  several  months  because  there  was  no  accessi- 
ble record  of  what  he  had  hitherto  received.  The  new 


294  S.  O.  S. 

pay  book,  which  must  be  carried  by  the  soldier  on  his 
person  all  the  time,  eliminates  this  hardship.  In  it  is 
recorded  every  payment  made  to  him  and  it  is  likewise 
a  complete  history  of  the  owner  together  with  his 
family  financial  obligations  if  he  has  any. 

This  book  is  patterned  after  a  similar  one  carried 
by  the  British  Tommy.  It  lacks  one  detail  of  the 
model,  however,  in  that  it  has  no  blank  space  on  which 
the  soldier  may  make  his  will.  Thousands  of  British 
troops  have  written  their  last  testament  within  sound 
of  the  guns  and  just  before  going  over  the  top  in  that 
little  blank  space  which  is  so  often  their  farewell 
indited  message  on  earth. 

The  American  army  pay  book  is  a  great  deal  more 
than  an  up-to-date  ledger  of  the  soldier's  income.  The 
record  of  the  automatic  withdrawal  of  the  allotments 
for  wife  or  mother  is  a  constant  reminder  of  obliga- 
tion to  family,  while  the  equally  systematic  payment 
of  his  instalment  on  the  Liberty  Loan  is  a  kindred 
stimulus  to  financial  responsibility  to  his  country  and 
his  flag.  It  begets  a  sense  of  thrift  and  saving  that, 
like  so  many  other  war  experiences,  becomes  a  con- 
structive precedent  for  peace. 

The  army  pay  book  is  just  one  of  many  first  aids 
to  the  soldier's  physical  and  economic  convenience. 
Just  as  a  Store  on  Wheels  goes  to  the  man  in  the 
trenches  so  does  a  Travelling  Adjuster  visit  units  in 
the  field  in  the  interests  of  War  Risk  Insurance.  The 
psychology  of  this  is  interesting.  The  nearer  a  man 
gets  to  the  Zone  of  Death  the  more  apt  he  is  to  want 
to  protect  his  family  in  case  he  is  killed.  A  bursting 


MARVELS  OF  ARMY  ORGANISATION    295 

German  shell,  therefore,  is  the  best  possible  "selling 
talk"  for  a  War  Risk  Insurance  policy. 

If  a  soldier  wants  to  continue  his  studies  in  France 
he  has  an  opportunity  to  enroll  in  a  Field  University 
which  is  being  equipped  with  $5,000,000  worth  of 
text-books  and  which  will  have  a  thousand  instructors 
from  American  schools  and  colleges.  If  he  is  unnat- 
uralised  he  does  not  have  to  wait  until  a  bullet  makes 
him  an  American  by  adoption.  By  signing  a  paper 
he  can  become  a  full-fledged  citizen  of  the  U.S.A.  No 
matter  what  branch  he  is  in,  he  can  get  the  special 
news  of  it  served  up  in  the  official  organ  of  that 
Service.  The  Engineers  have  a  monthly  magazine 
called  "The  Spike" ;  the  Motor  Transport  Corps  pub- 
lishes a  periodical  named  "The  Steering  Wheel"; 
while  the  Transportation  Department  has  unfurled 
"Rails  and  Sails"  to  the  breeze.  To  complete  this 
array  of  army  publicity  is  the  Stars  and  Stripes — 
the  official  newspaper  of  the  A.E.F. — which  gives  the 
American  Business  of  War  what  has  come  to  be  an 
essential  annex  of  every  well-regulated  corporation — 
a  Press  Agent.  Unlike  the  wicked  corporation,  how- 
ever, it  needs  none. 


XII — System  Unto  Death 


THE  extraordinary  system  that  accounts  for  all 
things  in  the  army  from  a  can  of  food  to  a 
five-ton  truck  renders  a  kindred  and  ultimate 
service  with  each  little  sepulchre  of  glory  that  dots 
the  fields  of  France.  Here  is  an  act  that  reaches 
across  the  sea  and  touches  the  hearts  and  homes  of  all 
America.  Since  no  soldier's  body  can  be  transported 
to  the  United  States  until  after  the  peace  treaty  is 
signed,  the  care  of  the  overseas  graves  becomes  a  mat- 
ter of  supreme  responsibility.  Through  a  supervision 
that  combines  tender  solicitude  with  minute  detail 
nearly  every  square  yard  of  French  earth  "with  a 
richer  earth  concealed"  is  marked  and  can  be  identi- 
fied when  the  Pilgrimage  of  Remembrance  begins. 

Our  grave  registration  is  perhaps  the  most  difficult 
in  the  war  for  the  reason  that  while  the  British,  for 
example,  operate  in  a  compact  area  in  France  our 
men  are  in  the  line  from  the  English  Channel  to  the 
Vosges.  They  have  been  thrown  in  the  battle-front 
at  unexpected  times  and  places  and  everywhere  they 
have  christened  the  ground  with  their  good  red  blood. 
The  complicated  and  sometimes  hazardous  labour  of 
finding  and  marking  these  graves  is  entrusted  to  what 
is  known  as  the  Graves  Registration  Service,  which 
has  fulfilled  a  sacred  obligation  with  a  fidelity  that 

296 


SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH  297 

will  give  this  all-necessary  detail  of  war  a  whole  new 
distinction  in  the  days  to  come. 

The  direction  of  such  a  task  demands  not  only  real 
organising  genius  but  sympathy  and  understanding  as 
well.  All  these  qualities  are  happily  embodied  in  Lieu- 
tenant Colonel  Charles  C.  Pierce,  who  is  the  Chief  of 
the  Service.  This  big-souled,  kindly  man  has  cheered 
the  aching  hearts  of  bereaved  American  wives,  moth- 
ers and  sweethearts  ever  since  the  first  Philippines  cam- 
paign took  toll  of  our  troops.  He  went  to  Manila  as 
an  army  chaplain.  He  soon  found  out  that  saving 
families  from  the  agony  of  suspense  about  the  loca- 
tion of  the  graves  of  the  loved-ones  was  as  important 
as  saving  souls,  so  he  devised  a  scientific  system  of 
accurate  identification  and  registration.  When  we 
were  ready  to  establish  a  similar  service  in  France  he 
was  the  logical  choice  to  organise  it. 

Although  its  function  is  as  sentimental  as  it  is  grue- 
some the  Graves  Registration  Service  is  organised 
precisely  like  any  other  branch  of  the  American  Army. 
Colonel  Pierce,  who  is  part  of  the  Quartermaster 
Corps,  is  at  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  which  outlines 
every  detail  of  its  work  from  the  acquisition  of  ceme- 
teries to  the  photographic  record  of  a  lonely  grave 
somewhere  on  the  fringe  of  battle.  The  G.R.S. — 
as  the  Graves  Registration  Service  is  called  for  short 
— has  nothing  to  do  with  the  burial  of  the  dead  (this 
is  done  by  Burial  Squads  with  the  army),  but  it  takes 
up  the  work  the  moment  that  the  grave  is  filled.  It 
registers  and  inspects  graves;  corresponds  with  rela- 
tives and  friends  of  deceased  soldiers,  conducts  a  liai- 


298  S.  O.  S. 

son  with  our  Allies  in  all  matters  of  mortuary  interest, 
and,  what  is  most  important  of  all,  maintains  such 
a  complete  and  accurate  record  of  every  soldier's  grave 
in  France  that  when  the  war  is  over  it  can  be  easily 
located. 

To  do  this,  Graves  Registration  must  have  the  co- 
operation of  the  armies  in  the  field.  It  begins  with  the 
individual  soldier.  Every  officer,  private  and  civilian 
attached  to  the  A.E.F.  must  wear  two  aluminum  iden- 
tity tags.  They  are  about  the  size  of  a  silver  half- 
dollar  and  of  a  suitable  thickness  and  must  be  worn 
suspended  from  the  neck  underneath  the  clothing  by 
a  cord  or  thong  passed  through  a  hole  in  the  tag.  The 
second  tag  is  suspended  from  the  first  one  by  a  short 
piece  of  string  or  tape.  In  the  case  of  officers  these 
discs  are  stamped  with  the  name,  rank,  regiment,  corps 
or  department  of  the  wearer  and  the  letters  "U.S." 
If  a  man  is  an  aviator  his  tag  would  bear  the  words 
"U.  S.  Air  Service."  Many  officers  wear  a  metal, 
identification  plate  attached  to  a  chain  around  the 
wrist.  With  private  soldiers  the  tags  are  simply 
stamped  with  the  soldier's  name  and  the  letters 
"U.  S.  A."  on  one  side  and  the  army  serial  number  on 
the  other.  In  the  British  army  the  religious  faith  of 
the  soldier  is  indicated.  C.E.  stands  for  Church  of 
England  and  R.C.  for  Roman  Catholic. 

When  a  soldier  is  killed  in  action  the  burial  squad 
is  required  to  bury  one  of  the  identification  discs  with 
the  body  and  place  the  other  in  a  bottle  or  attach  it 
in  some  way  to  the  temporary  marker  over  his  grave. 


SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH  299 

This  marker  is  usually  a  so-called  "peg"  on  which 
the  number  of  the  soldier  is  written  with  a  hard  black- 
lead  pencil.  All  burial  units  carry  pegs  or  wood 
crosses  on  which  the  serial  number  is  written.  The 
permanent  marking  of  the  soldier's  grave  is  an  olive 
drab  cross  bearing  an  aluminum  plate  showing  the 
soldier's  name  and  number. 

If  all  soldiers  were  killed  where  proper  time  and 
care  could  be  exercised  in  marking  their  graves  the 
task  of  registration  would  be  easy.  But  troops  fall  in 
the  heat  of  battle  inside  and  out  of  the  enemy's 
trenches,  in  No  Man's  Land,  and  on  spots  that  remain 
under  fire  sometimes  for  days  and  weeks.  They  are 
often  buried  where  they  fall  and  frequently  they  are 
not  allowed  to  sleep  their  last  sleep  in  peace.  More 
than  one  grave  has  been  churned  up  by  an  exploding 
shell  which  destroyed  every  mark  of  identification. 
The  job  of  Graves  Registration  is  not  to  reinter  that 
body  but  discover  some  clue  which  will  restore  the 
lost  identification.  The  methods  adopted  are  many 
and  unique.  A  soldier  whose  grave  has  been  destroyed 
by  shell  fire  has  sometimes  been  identified  through  a 
process  of  elimination  which  meant  the  checking  up 
of  hundreds  of  last  resting-places.  Again  a  coin  or 
a  keepsake  found  in  the  grave  has  been  associated 
with  its  one-time . owner.  The  G.R.S.,  however,  re- 
gards no  toil  too  arduous  to  establish  the  identity  of 
a  dead  soldier.  It  knows  that  for  every  bit  of  effort 
expended  in  France  there  is  a  corresponding  world  of 
gratitude  in  a  saddened  home  somewhere  in  America. 


300  S.  O.  S. 

Registration  of  graves  involves  no  small  degree  of 
danger.  In  the  Zone  of  the  Armies  the  G.R.S.  Units 
follow  closely  on  the  heels  of  the  burial  parties  of 
the  combat  troops,  registering  and  verifying  the  tem- 
porary markings  of  all  graves,  searching  for  and 
burying  bodies  that  have  been  overlooked,  and  regu- 
lating and  organising  the  battleground  cemetery  which 
rises  so  often  and  so  sadly  almost  overnight  on  the 
hillsides  and  in  the  valleys.  Some  of  these  Regis- 
trars develop  an  uncanny  instinct  for  locating  un- 
marked graves.  I  have  known  them  to  stop  suddenly 
on  the  road  and  after  a  swift  glance  at  a  field  nearby 
that  gave  absolutely  no  sign  of  a  grave  say,  "A  soldier 
is  buried  out  there."  Ask  how  they  know  it  and  they 
will  tell  you  that  it  is  determined  by  a  variety  of  rea- 
sons which  may  be  a  slight  depression  in  the  ground 
or  the  appearance  and  formation  of  the  soil. 

After  every  battle  an  offensive  is  launched  for  the 
dead  precisely  like  the  one  launched  for  the  living. 
It  is  composed  of  the  Advance  Groups  of  the  Graves 
Registration  Service.  Each  one  consists  of  an  officer 
and  ten  men.  They  deploy  a  skirmish  line  to  find  out 
if  any  grave  or  bodies  have  been  overlooked.  They 
work  under  shell  fire  and  perform  a  service  that  is 
both  heroic  and  holy.  I  can  pay  no  higher  tribute  to 
what  they  do  than  to  reproduce  part  of  a  Letter  of 
Commendation  about  one  of  them — it  was  in  charge 
of  Second  Lieutenant  Homer  B.  McCormick — which 
was  issued  by  special  direction  of  General  Pershing. 
The  official  account  of  the  particular  performance  is 
as  follows: 


SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH  301 

"On  April  20,  Lieut.  McCormick  and  his  Group 
arrived  at  Mandres  and  began  their  work  under  heavy 
shell  fire  and  gas,  and  although  troops  were  in  dug- 
outs, these  men  immediately  went  to  the  cemetery,  and 
in  order  to  preserve  records  and  locations,  repaired 
and  erected  new  crosses  as  fast  as  the  old  ones  were 
blown  down.  They  also  completed  the  extension  to 
the  cemetery,  this  work  occupying  one  and  a  half 
hours,  during  which  time  shells  were  falling  contin- 
ually and  they  were  subjected  to  mustard  gas.  They 
gathered  many  bodies  which  had  been  first  in  the 
hands  of  the  Germans,  and  were  later  retaken  by 
American  counter  attacks.  Identification  was  espe- 
cially difficult,  all  papers  and  tags  having  been  re- 
moved, and  most  of  the  bodies  being  in  a  terrible 
condition  and  beyond  recognition.  The  Lieutenant 
in  command  particularly  mentions  Sergeant  Keating 
and  Privates  La  Rue  and  Murphy,  as  having  been 
responsible  for  the  most  gruesome  part  of  the  work 
of  identification,  examining  every  body  most  thor- 
oughly, searching  for  scars  or  tattoo  marks  and  where 
bodies  were  blown  to  pieces,  these  men  were  especially 
particular  to  make  minute  examination,  regardless  of 
the  danger  attendant  upon  their  work.  This  group 
of  men  was  in  charge  of  everything  at  Mandres  from 
the  time  the  bodies  were  brought  in  until  they  were 
interred  and  marked  with  crosses  and  proper  name 
plates  were  attached/' 

As  soon  as  a  man  is  killed  in  action  his  death  is 
reported  by  telegraph  or  runner  by  his  immediate 
Commanding  Officer  to  the  Adjutant  of  the  unit,  who 
in  turn  sends  it  to  the  Adjutant  General  of  the  A.E.F., 
who  supervises  the  preparation  of  the  Casualty  List — 
the  Roll  of  Honour.  No  casualty  is  reported,  how- 


302  S.  O.  S. 

ever,  until  the  official  grave  location  is  received.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  men  missing  and  reported  dead 
for  days  or  weeks  sometimes  show  up  in  time  or  have 
been  captured  by  the  enemy.  The  Service,  therefore, 
takes  every  precaution  to  prevent  a  premature  notice 
of  death  being  sent  out. 

The  system  of  grave  location  becomes  a  highly  im- 
portant part  of  Casualty  Intelligence.  When  a  grave 
is  properly  marked  a  so-called  Grave  Location  Blank 
— made  out  in  duplicate — is  sent  to  the  Graves  Regis- 
tration office.  It  shows  the  name,  rank  and  number 
of  the  soldier;  the  place  of  burial;  the  grave  number; 
whether  the  grave  is  marked  with  a  peg,  headboard, 
cross  or  bottle;  the  disposition  of  the  identification  tag 
and  any  other  remarks.  This  Blank  must  be  signed 
by  the  chaplain  who  officiated  at  the  burial  or  some 
other  officer  present.  One  copy  of  this  Blank  goes 
to  Graves  Registration  and  the  other  to  Central  Rec- 
ords for  its  Master  Card  Index  of  the  A.E.F.  The 
permanent  record  of  the  grave  is  put  on  a  card  which 
contains  the  army  history  of  the  soldier;  where  he 
died;  the  nature  of  his  wound;  how  he  was  identified; 
the  number  of  the  Casualty  Cablegram  in  which  his 
death  was  officially  reported ;  his  next  of  kin,  and  the 
disposition  of  his  personal  effects.  A  special  Effects 
Depot,  in  Base  Section  Number  One,  assembles  the 
property  of  all  men  killed  and  transmits  it  to  their 
families. 

Not  content  with  making  certain  that  every  grave 
is  properly  located  and  registered,  the  G.R.S.  performs 
still  another  kindly  service  in  the  shape  of  a  letter 


SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH  303 

written  by  Colonel  Pierce  to  the  next  of  kin  as  soon 
as  the  location  of  the  spot  is  definitely  known.  It 
conveys  the  assurance  that  the  six  feet  of  French  earth 
specified  will  be  cared  for  during  the  war  and  until 
there  may  be  further  disposition  of  the  remains.  That 
this  army  thoughtfulness  is  not  without  its  grateful 
appreciation  is  shown  by  the  hundreds  of  letters  that 
have  been  received.  Out  of  them  I  select  one  which 
reached  France  just  before  Memorial  Day,  1918,  and 
which  shows  what  a  patriotic  American  father  thought 
of  Graves  Registration.  Here  it  is: 

"My  dear  Sir: 

"Your  kind  and  sympathetic  letter  in  regard  to  my 
son's  death,  burial  and  grave  location  was  received 
yesterday.  Your  letter  is  a  great  support  to  me  and 
it  is  good  to  note  the  absence  of  caste  in  our  Amer- 
ican Army.  Your  letter  gives  the  tone  of  a  true  com- 
rade, soldier  and  American.  My  son  was  all  I  had — 
he  and  I  were  pals.  I  shall  take  his  place  in  an  ap- 
propriate position  as  soon  as  I  can. 

"I  am  enclosing  a  check  for  ten  dollars  and  ask 
you  to  place  such  flowers  on  his  grave  as  you  can. 
I  would  like  a  lily  if  you  can  get  one  (he  always 
bought  a  lily  for  my  birthday  on  April  12).  If  you 
have  any  money  left  use  it  for  the  graves  of  some 
of  the  boys  who  have  no  fathers  to  send  checks. 

"Respectfully  yours, 

"P.  S.  Will  you  please  put  a  card  on  the  flowers 
for  Memorial  Day,  saying  that  they  are  from  Dad 
and  Mother." 

The  thoughtfulness  of  Graves  Registration  has  no 
more  concrete  expression  than  in  the  special  provision 


304  S.  O.  S. 

for  marking  the  graves  of  the  Hebrew  dead.  In  no 
instance  is  a  cross  used.  If  only  crosses  are  available 
the  horizontal  piece  is  removed  and  the  name  plate 
or  number  is  attached  to  the  perpendicular  section  or 
standard.  The  prescribed  marking  for  Jewish  soldiers 
is  a  square  headboard  which  is  carried  on  the  regular 
list  of  Quartermaster  supplies.  When  you  know  this 
you  feel  certain  that  if  any  Mahometan  should  die  in 
the  service  of  the  A.E.F.  he  would  be  laid  away  with 
his  head  towards  his  beloved  East! 

The  army  system  which  knows  neither  friend  nor 
foe  carries  its  tender  ministrations  to  the  enemy  dead. 
Whenever  it  is  necessary  for  the  A.E.F.  to  bury  a 
German  or  an  Austrian  a  section  of  a  military  ceme- 
tery is  utilised.  A  report  of  this  grave  location  is 
made  just  as  in  the  case  of  an  American.  The  indica- 
tions of  rank  and  service  are  reproduced  in  German 
as  well  as  English.  The  location  of  these  graves  is 
conveyed  to  the  German  authorities  through  the  Amer- 
ican Legation  at  Berne,  acting  with  the  Red  Cross. 

One  more  picturesque  detail  will  illustrate  the  thor- 
oughness of  Graves  Registration.  Whenever  a  grave 
is  "isolated,"  which  means  that  it  may  be  outside  a 
cemetery,  in  some  obscure  French  burial-ground  or  in 
a  detached  field,  a  sketch  is  made  of  it  and  becomes  a 
part  of  the  location  records.  I  have  seen  scores  of 
these  sketches.  They  are  so  minute  and  accurate  that 
a  child  could  find  the  grave  by  having  the  diagram  in 
its  hand.  If  the  grave  is  near  a  road  the  sketch  will 
not  only  show  the  road  and  adjacent  territory  but  will 
specify  that  "a  group  of  firs  is  six  feet  away."  On 


SYSTEM  UNTO  DEATH  305 

another  sketch  I  saw  this  direction:  "The  grave  is 
fifteen  feet  from  the  road  and  under  a  shell  hole  in 
a  stone  wall/'  Arrangements  have  recently  been  com- 
pleted for  a  photographic  record  of  every  American 
grave  in  France.  It  will  be  done  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Red  Cross.  Such  elaborate  supervision  means 
that  the  percentage  of  "unknown"  American  dead  in 
this  war  will  be  smaller  than  ever  before  in  history. 

The  efficiency  of   the  A.E.F.    obtains  even   unto 
death :    Greater  love  than  this  hath  no  army. 


XIII — Business  Managing  War 


WHEN  the  real  story  of  the  Great  War  is  writ- 
ten and  some  dispassionate  appraisal  is  made 
of  the  causes  of  victory  it  will  be  found  that 
the  laurel  of  civilisation's  triumph  will  rest  with  no 
single  nation.  It  was  not  the  unspeakable  sacrifice 
of  Belgium,  the  incomparable  heroism  of  France,  the 
dauntless  courage  of  the  British,  the  blithe  daring  of 
America,  the  fortitude  of  Italy,  or  the  well-nigh  for- 
gotten Russian  resistance  of  the  early  days.  Rather 
was  it  the  co-ordination  of  all  this  superb  effort  ex- 
pressed in  the  Unity  of  High  Command  at  the  front, 
coupled  with  no  less  flexible  and  compact  Unity  of 
Supply  in  the  rear,  that  made  the  achievement  pos- 
sible. 

To  this  unification,  which  must  stand  out  as  the 
really  determining  factor  in  the  war  (Germany  did 
not  begin  to  crumple  up  until  the  Foch  Consolidated 
Hammer  began  to  strike)  America  has  contributed 
her  full  share.  Nor  is  this  surprising.  Co-ordination 
is  simply  another  name  for  that  larger  standardisa- 
tion of  efficiency  and  product  which  epitomise  her  in- 
dustrial genius.  It  became  one  of  her  overseas  aims 
the  moment  she  became  a  full-fledged  partner  in  the 
Business  of  War  and  had  an  army  in  the  field.  With 
this  Business  Managing  of  War,  as  it  may  well  be 

306 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          307 

called,  we  will  conclude  our  survey  of  the  American 
Supply  System  in  France.  Through  some  of  the  prec- 
edents it  has  established  we  will  not  only  be  able  to 
cope  with  the  immense  problem  of  demobilisation  but 
assume  intelligently  the  new  economic  responsibilities 
which  will  come  with  the  daybreak  of  world  peace. 

The  scheme  of  co-ordinated  Allied  supply  is  really 
due  to  the  foresight  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  American  armies  in  France.  Like  most  admir- 
able institutions  it  began  at  home,  which  means  that 
it  was  practically  born  in  the  A.E.F.  The  American 
Army  had  to  be  adequately  supplied  before  it  could 
fire  a  shot.  Such  a  supply  demanded  a  stupendous 
shipping  and  at  the  outset  we  had  few  ships.  Ton- 
nage, as  I  have  often  pointed  out  in  these  chapters, 
was  the  supreme  problem  of  the  A.E.F.  from  the  be- 
ginning. Every  effort  had  to  be  bent  to  relieve  the 
strain  on  it. 

One  definite  way  was  to  procure  everything  pos- 
sible abroad.  It  necessitated  the  establishment  of  a 
huge  purchasing  agency  which  would  co-ordinate 
army  buying  and  become  a  vital  link  in  the  whole 
supply  chain.  This  has  been  done  and  on  a  truly 
American  scale  of  scope  and  action.  When  I  tell 
you  that  up  to  November  i,  1918,  we  had  purchased 
8,400,000  tons  in  Europe  you  realise  what  this  organ- 
isation has  done  in 'bulk  alone.  But  this  is  not  all. 
Every  ton  of  material  bought  in  Europe  means  that 
a  ship  ton  of  40  cubic  feet  is  saved  for  men  or  sup- 
plies that  must  and  can  only  be  brought  from  the 
United  States.  Multiply  this  8,400,000  times  and  it 


308  S.  O.  S. 

becomes  quite  evident  that  without  the  purchasing 
agency  we  have  set  up,  the  whole  American  war  par- 
ticipation might  have  been  seriously  impaired. 
Through  its  Labour  Bureau  it  secured,  maintained  and 
militarised  an  army  of  47,000  civilians  in  Europe, 
Asia  and  Africa,  which  was  another  tonnage  saver. 
It  has  been  the  silent  submarine-fighter.  The  story 
of  the  world- wide  machine  that  it  has  created,  the 
fortitude  and  resource  of  the  business  men  in  khaki 
who  operate  it,  and  the  constructive  and  co-operative 
influence  that  it  has  exerted  upon  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  comprise  a  fitting  finale  to  the  panorama  of  the 
Services  of  Supply  of  which  it  is  a  part,  and  which 
has  passed  in  review  before  you. 

Army  purchase  began  in  France  the  moment  that 
the  first  American  Expeditionary  Force  landed.  Ob- 
viously it  could  not  carry  all  the  supplies  it  needed 
and  hungry  men  and  beasts  cannot  wait.  In  addition, 
our  first  Engineering  units  arrived  practically  with- 
out tools.  It  meant  intensive  purchasing,  which  has 
kept  up  on  an  increasing  scale  ever  since. 

As  the  overseas  force  expanded  this  buying  which 
began  by  scattered  units  was  done  by  organised  Serv- 
ices. Each  Service  has  its  Purchasing  Officer.  The  in- 
evitable happened.  So  urgent  was  the  demand  for  sup- 
plies of  all  kinds  that  these  branches  of  the  army  were 
soon  in  commendable  but  costly  competition  with  each 
other.  When  the  Quartermaster  Corps  priced  a  quan- 
tity of  material,  for  example,  and  returned  in  a  few 
days  with  the  necessary  authority  to  buy,  it  discov- 
ered that  the  Engineers  had  already  absorbed  it.  The 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR  309 

evil  went  further  because  the  French  business  man, 
being  human,  stimulated  this  competition  and  raised 
his  price  accordingly.  The  French  army,  in  turn,  felt 
the  effect  of  this  competition  and  a  serious  situation 
developed. 

No  one  realised  this  more  swiftly  than  General 
Pershing,  whose  grasp  of  business  detail  and  instinct 
for  standardisation  are  almost  uncanny.  He  saw  that 
while  every  ton  we  bought  in  Europe  aided  the  whole 
shipping  programme,  the  purchase  of  that  ton  must 
be  orderly  and  constructive.  In  August,  1917,  he 
authorised  a  General  Purchasing  Board  composed  of 
the  Purchasing  Officers  of  the  various  Services  and 
with  a  General  Purchasing  Agent  at  the  head.  This 
Agent  was  to  be  the  representative  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  in  liaison  with  the  various  Allied  purchasing 
agencies  and  charged  also  with  the  co-ordination  and 
supervision  of  all  purchasing  agents  in  the  A.E.F. 

The  problem  was  to  find  a  business  man  in  the  army 
with  sufficient  financial  and  commercial  experience  to 
attach  himself  to  a  desk  and  organise  this  all-impor- 
tant work.  It  required  vision,  executive  ability,  and 
the  power  to  handle  difficult  situations  arising  out  of 
negotiations  with  foreign  governments.  Fortunately 
a  man  of  this  calibre  happened  to  be  wearing  the  uni- 
form of  an  officer  of  Engineers  in  France.  He  was 
the  then  Lieutenant  Colonel,  and  now  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral, Charles  G.  Dawes,  who  had  been  Comptroller  of 
Currency  under  President  McKinley  and  who  had 
worked  his  way  from  humble  station  in  an  Ohio  town 
to  be  president  of  one  of  the  leading  Trust  Companies 


310  S.  O.  S. 

in  Chicago.  He  expressed  the  highest  possible  capital- 
isation of  business  brains  for  the  Business  of  War. 
When  we  went  to  war  with  Germany  he  sought  active 
service.  Having  been  Chief  Engineer  of  a  small  rail- 
way in  the  Middle  West  in  his  early  days,  he  obtained 
a  commission  in  a  famous  Engineer  regiment  which 
was  one  of  the  first  to  arrive  in  France  and  which 
has  left  its  impress  in  docks,  railway  construction  and 
Supply  Depots. 

General  Pershing  knew  General  Dawes  when  the 
latter  was  a  practising  lawyer  in  Lincoln,  Nebraska. 
He  had  followed  his  admirable  career  in  the  army  so 
he  installed  him  in  Paris  as  General  Purchasing  Agent. 
He  began  in  a  small  room  in  the  Hotel  Sainte  Anne 
which  was  then  the  Headquarters  of  the  American 
Army.  To-day  his  staff  and  the  associated  organisa- 
tions not  only  occupy  the  largest  hotel  in  Paris  but 
have  representatives  in  nearly  a  dozen  different  coun- 
tries. Thus  with  Purchasing — as  with  every  other 
detail  of  American  Supply — you  get  the  now  familiar 
miracle  of  an  almost  unprecedented  expansion. 

When  you  examine  the  work  of  the  General  Pur- 
chasing Agent  and  the  General  Purchasing  Board — 
they  are  two  separate  and  distinct  propositions — you 
find  that  they  parallel  for  war  the  same  system  of 
organisation  observed  by  a  huge  corporation  in  peace. 
Let  me  illustrate  with  the  case  of  the  United  States 
Steel  Corporation.  If  every  one  of  its  subsidiary  com- 
panies purchased  raw  material,  machinery  and  general 
supplies  on  its  own  and  in  the  open  market  the  over- 
head cost  would  be  excessive  on  account  of  the  lively 


BRIGADIER  GENERAL  CHARLES  G.  DA  WES 
General  Purchasing  Agent,  A.  E.  F. 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR  311 

competition.  Instead,  the  corporation  established  a 
Chief  Purchasing  Agent  who  buys  for  the  whole  insti- 
tution. All  requirements  are  submitted  to  him  ahead 
of  time;  he  anticipates  needs,  and  gets  the  best  pos- 
sible product  and  price.  It  is  centralised  buying.  This 
is  precisely  what  happened  with  the  A.E.F.  The 
"G.P.A." — as  the  General  Purchasing  Agent  is 
called— and  the  "G.P.B.,"  which  is  the  General  Pur- 
chasing Board,  do  all  the  overseas  buying  for  our 
armies  through  a  system  that  is  a  marvel  of  co-ordina- 
tion and  result. 

The  General  Purchasing  Agent  occupies  a  peculiar 
yet  distinct  position.  Although  every  dollar's  worth 
of  material  that  we  buy  outside  of  America  is  pur- 
chased under  his  authority  he  does  no  buying  himself. 
The  buying  is  done  through  the  heads  of  the  Purchas- 
ing Departments  of  the  various  Services  who  consti- 
tute the  General  Purchasing  Board  and  who  maintain, 
as  a  result,  an  independence  of  purchase.  They  pur- 
chase by  category,  that  is  by  specific  lists  of  items,  and 
the  process  is  therefore  known  as  Categorical  Pur- 
chasing. The  General  Purchasing  Agent,  however, 
acts  as  a  general  co-ordinator  of  all  this  buying.  He 
approves  although  he  cannot  initiate  purchase.  He 
likewise  exercises  the  full  power  of  veto  which  is  the 
check  on  excess,  extravagance  and  conflict  with  the 
interests  of  our  Allies. 

Whether  in  France,  Switzerland,  Spain,  Italy,  Hol- 
land, Sweden,  or  Portugal  the  General  Purchasing 
Agent,  through  his  representative  in  that  country,  be- 
comes the  outpost  and  the  scout  for  supplies.  He 


312  S.  O.  S. 

locates  horses,  digs  up  raw  material,  discovers  ma- 
chinery, secures  options  on  crops.  The  actual  buying 
of  all  this,  however,  is  done  by  the  representative  of 
the  Service  for  which  it  is  intended  acting  under  the 
G.P.A.  representative's  supervision.  This  procedure 
is  expedited — you  must  step  lively  in  war  buying — 
for  the  reason  that  an  officer  of  each  Service  is  at- 
tached to  every  foreign  branch  of  the  G.P.A.  In  such 
a  transaction,  therefore,  the  agent  of  the  G.P.A.  acts 
as  Co-ordinating  Officer.  The  great  bulk  of  our  over- 
seas buying,  however,  is  in  France  where  an  explana- 
tion of  the  system  reveals  the  whole  working  of  an 
organisation  which  is  second  to  no  Allied  Business 
institution  geared  up  to  the  needs  of  the  war. 

In  order  to  get  a  comprehensive  view  we  must  begin 
in  the  office  of  General  Dawes  in  the  Elysee  Palace 
Hotel  which  is  the  Headquarters  of  all  A.E.F.  pur- 
chasing activities.  Every  American  who  has  visited 
Paris  in  recent  years  will  at  once  appreciate  the  pic- 
turesque significance  that  attaches  to  the  use  of  this 
hotel  for  war  purposes.  The  imposing  stone  struc- 
ture, which  occupies  a  full  block  on  the  Champs 
Elysees,  was  the  favourite  stamping  ground — so  far 
as  Paris  was  concerned — of  the  beauty,  chivalry  and 
royalty  of  Europe  before  the  war.  Here  King  Leo- 
pold of  Belgium  maintained  a  suite.  In  the  foyer 
dukes,  diplomats  and  stage  favourites  mingled  in  gay 
and  festive  array. 

Vanished  are  all  these  social  splendours.  Where 
once  the  champagne  glasses  clinked  you  hear  the  rat- 
tle of  American  typewriters ;  in  the  gilded  dining  room 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR  313 

whose  no  less  gilded  price  lists  nightly  punctured  the 
pocket-book  you  find  a  Board  of  Accounts  pruning 
army  pay-rolls;  in  those  splendid  chambers  which 
rustled  with  silk  and  reeked  with  perfume  American 
business  men  wrestle  with  contracts,  while  the  marble 
bath-rooms,  once  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the 
French  capital,  are  the  repository  of  card  indexes.  One 
of  the  smartest  hotels  in  Europe  has  become  the  hum- 
ming counting  room  of  an  animated  branch  of  the 
American  Business  of  War.  It  is  one  more  convincing 
evidence  that  war,  which  is  no  respecter  of  persons, 
is  likewise  the  supreme  leveller  of  hotel  rank. 

Typical  of  all  this  denatured  splendour  is  the  fact 
that  General  Dawes'  office  is  in  the  stately  and  pan- 
elled salon  of  what  was,  in  happier  days,  the  Grande 
Suite.  But  it  is  shorn  of  its  trappings  and  save  for 
the  noble  ceiling  and  ornate  mantel  is  just  like  the 
work-room  of  the  President  of  a  great  corporation. 
In  the  centre  is  the  long  table  where  the  occasional 
meetings  of  the  General  Purchasing  Board — the  Di- 
rectors of  this  vast  Purchasing  Corporation — are  held. 
Facing  the  door  and  at  a  simple  flat-top  desk  sits  Gen- 
eral Dawes  while  opposite  to  him  is  Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel Nelson  D.  Jay,  who  left  the  Vice-Presidency  of 
one  of  the  largest  New  York  Trust  Companies  to  do 
his  share  in  France. 

In  this  book  I  have  described  many  charts  of  army 
organisation  yet  none  perhaps  is  more  ramified1 — 
certainly  none  embraces  such  far-flung  authority — as 
the  one  which  bares  the  operations  of  the  General 
Purchasing  Agent,  who  is  on  the  administrative  staff 


314  S.  O.  S. 

of  General  Pershing.  At  the  apex  is  the  Commander- 
in-Chief.  Linked  with  him  is  the  Commanding  Gen- 
eral of  the  Services  of  Supply.  Tied  up  with  both  of 
these  is  the  G.P.A.,  from  whom  radiates  such  a  net- 
work of  co-ordinated  agencies  that  the  chart  looks 
like  the  reproduction  of  an  octopus  whose  tentacles 
extend  everywhere.  They  bind  the  A.E.F.  up  with 
all  our  Allies;  they  extend  to  every  foreign  country 
where  we  buy  supplies;  they  disclose  a  succession  of 
compact,  scientific  and  highly-organised  bureaus  that 
do  everything  from  standardising  accounts  to  setting 
up  insurance  against  after-the-war  investigations.  To 
analyse  them  in  order  is  to  dissect  a  system  that  could 
audit,  manage,  and  safeguard  the  fiscal  interests  of  any 
huge  American  corporation  no  matter  how  large. 

The  Control  Bureau  will  aptly  illustrate  how  the 
organisation  works.  At  the  head  is  Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel Francis  E.  Drake  whose  long  contact  with  Big 
Business  in  Europe  equipped  him  to  deal  with  the 
many  problems  that  Continental  wa^-time  buying  de- 
velop. Associated  with  him  is  a  group  of  American 
business  men,  most  of  them  long  residents  of  Paris 
who  left  lucrative  posts  to  give  army  buying  the  benefit 
of  their  varied  experience. 

The  Control  Bureau  is  the  clearing  house  for  all 
American  army  orders.  They  flow  in  to  the  extent  of 
several  hundred  each  day  from  the  Purchasing  De- 
partments of  the  eleven  Services  that  buy  everything 
from  rails  to  trucks.  Not  only  must  every  order  have 
the  approval  of  the  General  Purchasing  Agent  but  all 
orders  involving  amounts  in  excess  of  $1,000  must 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          315 

have  the  additional  approval  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment. Hence  the  bureau  maintains  an  intimate  and 
constant  liaison  with  the  French  Government  which 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  constructive  phases 
of  its  work. 

Every  Service  in  the  A.E.F.  gets — and  it  will  con- 
tinue until  the  army  leaves  France — what  is  known 
as  the  Forward  Requirements  of  its  various  units. 
By  Forward  Requirements  is  meant  future  needs. 
These  Requirements  are  transmitted  to  the  General 
Purchasing  Agent  who  consolidates  them.  He  like- 
wise co-ordinates  all  demands  for  certain  standard 
commodities.  If,  for  example,  the  Quartermaster 
Corps,  Ordnance  and  Engineers  all  need  shovels  the 
whole  army  need  of  shovels  is  unified  in  one  requisi- 
tion and  the  buying  is  done  by  the  Engineers.  This 
saves  labour  and  enables  the  army  to  buy  in  larger 
quantities  and  get  the  benefit  of  such  purchasing. 

Orders  for  food,  timber  or  leather  require  slight 
supervision.  If  they  involve  the  use  of  metal — as  the 
great  majority  of  them  do — they  are  caught  up  at 
once  in  a  drastic  scrutiny  which  not  only  shows 
Franco-American  supply  co-ordination  at  its  best  but 
unfolds  a  process  of  close-knit  business  administra- 
tion that  will  have  its  effect  long  after  the  last  shot 
of  the  war  is  fired.  This  brings  us  to  the  Metal  Con- 
trol Office  whose  task  is  to  scrutinise  the  amount  of 
metal  required  for  the  manufacture  of  articles  for 
American  army  use.  Installed  as  Metal  Controller  is 
Captain  Charles  E.  Carpenter,  who  had  been  a  brilliant 
and  successful  machinery  expert  in  Paris  in  civil  life. 


316  S.  O.  S. 

He  allots  all  metal  for  A.E.F.  use.  If  the  needs  of 
the  different  Purchasing  Departments  exceed  the  avail- 
able supply  he  distributes  the  material  in  proportion 
to  the  need. 

The  moment  you  touch  metal  you  touch  one  of  the 
most  zealously  conserved  commodities  in  France.  The 
reason  is  quite  obvious.  In  the  first  flush  of  her  war 
successes  and  when  she  came  down  from  the  North 
like  a  "wolf  on  the  fold"  Germany  acquired  by  con- 
quest more  than  eighty  per  cent  of  the  iron  and  steel 
producing  capacity  of  France.  A  metal  crisis  at  once 
developed.  The  French  war  industries  became  de- 
pendent to  a  large  extent  for  their  raw  supplies  upon 
other  countries.  Much  of  this  material  had  to  come 
from  the  United  States  and  therefore  became  a  part 
of  the  eternal  tonnage  problem.  Before  we  entered 
the  war  it  was  not  so  serious.  Just  as  soon  as  we 
began  to  manufacture  munitions  for  our  own  use  the 
French  metal  situation  naturally  became  more  acute. 
Every  ton  of  iron  or  steel  diverted  to  a  non-essential 
use  not  only  meant  the  loss  of  this  material  to  war 
necessities  but  likewise  wasted  a  ton  of  valuable  ship- 
ping. Hence  the  French  Government  wisely  estab- 
lished a  rigid  control  over  the  supply  of  all  raw  mate- 
rials and  mainly  metals. 

The  advent  of  the  American  Army  in  numbers  made 
the  metal  situation  more  serious  because  we  began  to 
place  orders  in  France  for  machinery,  tools  and  other 
articles  that  used  steel  and  iron  and  which  could  not 
be  shipped  from  the  United  States  because  we  needed 
the  tonnage  for  men  and  food.  This  constantly  in- 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          317 

creasing  employment  of  the  manufacturing  facilities 
of  France  taxed  output  and  raw  material.  The  Con- 
trol Bureau  therefore  submits  all  American  orders 
involving  metal  to  the  French  who  not  only  act  as 
censors  of  price  and  probity  of  contractors  but  prac- 
tically allot  the  French  material  to  be  used. 

Our  orders  involving  metal  are  sent  twice  daily  to 
what  is  known  as  the  Inspection  des  Forges,  where  a 
corps  of  French  experts,  familiar  with  every  detail  of 
manufacturing,  makes  a  rigid  examination  with  the 
twin  view  of  protecting  both  governments  and  pre- 
venting any  waste  of  precious  metal.  This  Inspection 
des  Forges  is  one  of  the  many  constructive  instru- 
ments developed  by  the  war  and  because  of  its  inevit- 
able influence  with  peace  is  well  worth  an  explanation. 
Before  the  war  it  corresponded  to  the  Inspection  Di- 
vision of  the  United  States  Ordnance  Service  in  that 
it  inspected  raw  material  for  guns  and  also  the  finished 
product.  It  operated  in  four  districts,  which  were 
Paris,  Toulouse,  Lyons  and  Nantes.  With  the  out- 
break of  hostilities  France  immediately  converted  it 
into  an  agency  for  the  procurement  of  raw  materials 
and  machinery  necessary  to  war  industry.  It  resulted 
in  what  the  name  implies — a  literal  inspection  or  con- 
trol over  every  forge  in  France.  It  has  branches — or 
Detachments  as  they  are  known — in  all  the  smaller 
cities  and  through  them  exercises  an  incessant  super- 
vision of  the  whole  iron  and  steel  industry  of  the 
Republic. 

The  Control  Bureau  has  a  Liaison  Officer, — Cap- 
tain John  H.  Weare,  a  steel  man  of  long  experience — 


3i8  S.  O.  S. 

constantly  at  the  Inspection  des  Forges.  Just  as  soon 
as  an  American  Army  order  arrives  it  is  analysed. 
Many  essential  requirements  must  be  met.  Since  it 
involves  a  contract  with  a  French  manufacturer  the 
first  step  is  to  find  out  if  this  particular  firm  or  indi- 
vidual is  on  the  Black  List,  that  is,  if  it  is  excluded 
from  dealings  with  the  French  Government.  Then 
comes  the  examination  of  the  amount  of  metal  re- 
quired and  the  relation  that  it  bears  to  the  distribution 
of  the  limited  supply  of  raw  materials  in  France.  The 
third  item  is  the  all-important  question  of  price,  since 
it  is  neither  the  desire  nor  the  interests  of  the  French 
Government  that  the  American  army  be  charged  more 
than  the  French  consumers.  The  final  qualification 
is  the  ability  of  the  contractor  to  fulfil  his  obligation 
within  the  time  limit  prescribed.  All  this  information 
is  readily  accessible  to  the  Inspection  des  Forges  be- 
cause its  hundreds  of  inspectors  are  constantly  in 
touch  with  the  manufacturing  establishments  in  their 
districts  and  know  to  the  quarter  of  a  ton  what  the 
plant  capacities  are. 

If  the  order  and  the  contractor  meet  requirements 
the  approval  of  the  Inspection  des  Forges  is  stamped 
on  it  and  it  returns  to  the  American  Control  Bureau 
for  the  General  Purchasing  Agent's  approval.  Once 
stamped  with  his  vise  the  contract  makes  one  more 
journey  to  another  Department  of  the  French  Gov- 
ernment to  be  examined  with  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  its  interference  with  similar  work  being  done  for 
the  French  armies.  If  no4  conflict  is  established  it 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR  319 

receives  the  final  O.K.  and  goes  to  the  contractor  for 
execution. 

This  scrutiny  shows  that  there  is  little  chance  for 
the  profiteer  to  get  in  his  nefarious  work.  Wherever 
evidence  of  attempted  extortion  is  found  the  French 
Government  takes  the  matter  in  its  own  hands  and 
requisitions  the  material  or  merchandise  on  the  ac- 
count of  the  army.  This  close  team-work  resulting 
from  a  double  examination  of  orders  by  both  govern- 
ments prevents  competition  between  the  two  armies. 
When  there  is  a  limited  supply  of  certain  articles  it 
insures  equitable  distribution  between  them. 

The  probe  that  the  Inspection  des  Forges  applies  to 
all  American  contracts  has  "smoked  out"  many  a  prof- 
iteer to  the  eminent  satisfaction  of  the  French  author- 
ities. Just  as  soon  as  a  French  contractor  arouses  the 
suspicion  of  this  admirable  agency  of  conservation  rfe 
is  summoned  to  Headquarters  and  is  put  through  the 
"third  degree"  by  the  French  that  disgorges  every- 
thing. Particular  attention  is  given  to  middle  men  or 
men  who  handle  army  contracts  as  a  side  line.  The 
American  army  contract  has  been  the  means  of  ren- 
dering conspicuous  service  in  uncovering  overcharges, 
as  leading  officials  of  the  Inspection  des  Forges  glee- 
fully informed  me.  Upon  one  occasion  a  Parisian 
entered  into  a  contract  with  the  A.E.F.  to  provide  a 
certain  number  of  hacksaws.  The  contract  went 
through  the  routine  mill  and  reached  what  well  might 
be  called  the  prosecuting  attorney  of  the  Inspection  des 
Forges,  who,  smelling  a  mouse,  summoned  the  con- 
tractor to  his  presence.  It  developed  that  he  was  a 


320  S.  O.  S. 

dealer  in  pearls  who  was  handling  hacksaws  as  a  side 
line.  The  price  he  had  made  for  them  gave  the 
French  the  impression  that  he  still  believed  he  was 
dealing  in  precious  stones.  Not  only  was  he  deprived 
of  the  contract  but  the  French  Government  put  him 
on  a  list  where  he  could  do  no  further  extorting. 

The  generous  co-operation  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment with  our  army  has  no  higher  expression  than^ 
in  the  work  of  the  Inspection  des  Forges,  which  has 
saved  the  United  States  infinite  anxiety,  time  and 
money.  This  institution,  however,  is  not  only  the 
watchdog  of  war-time  product  and  pocket-book  but 
it  will  be  a  bulwark  of  French  industry  after  the  war 
and  a  vital  instrument  with  which  to  combat  German 
industrial  aggression.  It  can  be  developed  into  a 
tremendous  rival  of  the  celebrated  German  Metall 
Gesellschaft  which,  with  the  Allgememe  Electrische 
Gesellschaft — the  Teutonic  Electric  Machinery  Trust 
— was  on  the  point  of  dictating  terms  to  the  Conti- 
nental metal  industry  when  the  war  interfered  with  its 
mighty  programme. 

Closely  allied  with  this  Metal  Control  is  a  kindred 
control  of  equal  importance.  With  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  her  iron  and  steel  resources  in  the  hands  of 
the  Germans,  France  faced  a  serious  problem  in  fill- 
ing orders  for  the  American  army.  She  was  perfectly 
willing  to  help  us  out  and  relieve  the  strain  on  ship- 
ping but  she  had  to  have  the  wherewithal  to  produce 
the  goods.  To  this  end  an  arrangement  was  entered 
into  by  which  we  transport  raw  material  from  the 
United  States  and  parcel  it  out  to  the  French  fac- 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          321 

lories.  The  intermediary  is  the  Bureau  of  Reciprocal 
Supply  which  is  part  of  the  General  Purchasing 
Agent's  organisation. 

Although  this  operation  requires  a  considerable  ton- 
nage the  commodities  into  which  this  material  is  con- 
verted would  require  a  good  deal  more.  Experience 
has  proved  that  the  bringing  in  of  a  single  ton  of  raw 
material  saves  from  five  to  ten  tons  of  shipping  and, 
what  is  equally  important,  provides  for  the  rapid  and 
uninterrupted  procurement  of  articles  in  which  a  scar- 
city develops.  This  applies  to  almost  every  known 
product  from  ash  cans  to  automobile  trucks,  which  are 
being  made  every  day  in  France  for  the  A.E.F. 

Let  us  assume  that  the  Quartermaster  Corps  needs 
5,000  ash  cans;  that  the  Motor  Transport  Corps  re- 
quires 1,000  five-ton  truck  chasses,  and  that  the  Air 
Service  must  have  2,000  gasolene  tanks  and  at  once. 
If  orders  for  these  articles  were  placed  through  the 
Control  Bureau  with  French  firms  and  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  French  Government  it  would  absorb  a 
considerable  amount  of  raw  material  necessary  for 
French  war  industry.  By  procuring  the  raw  material 
from  the  United  States  the  strain  on  the  French 
sources  of  raw  material  is  at  once  relieved  and  tonnage 
is  saved  at  the  same  time. 

Here  is  where  the  Board  of  Reciprocal  Supply 
comes  in.  The  French  firms  who  have  contracts  for 
these  specific  articles  submit  their  requirements  for 
the  raw  material.  These  requirements  are  transmitted 
direct  to  the  War  Industries  Board  at  Washington 
which  controls  all  raw  material  in  the  United  States. 


322  S.  O.  S. 

Washington,  through  its  various  agencies,  secures  the 
material  and  ships  it  to  France  where  it  immediately 
becomes  available  for  American  use. 

Every  day  an  immense  amount  of  such  material 
arrives  at  French  ports.  It  must  be  received,  stored, 
and  allotted  to  the  various  French  industries.  All  this 
requires  a  definite  organisation.  It  would  not  pay  the 
A.E.F.  to  build  up  an  institution  for  this  work  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  French  Government  through 
its  control  of  industry  and  material  already  has  such 
a  machine  in  operation.  Hence  all  this  material  is 
turned  over  to  the  French,  who  store  and  deal  it  out 
to  their  industries,  who  are  paid  the  price  fixed  by  the 
Government.  Again  you  have  an  example  of  the 
co-operation  between  the  French  and  American  Gov- 
ernments which  is  both  constructive  and  economical. 

As  a  result  of  this  activity  the  emergency  needs  of 
the  A.E.F.  are  met  and  many  thousands  of  tons  of 
precious  cargo  space  are  saved  for  necessities  that  can 
only  be  manufactured  in  the  United  States.  This  is 
particularly  true  of  so-called  hollow-ware.  A  con- 
tainer of  any  kind  as  a  finished  article  occupies  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  room  on  a  ship.  When  that  arti- 
cle is  sent  to  France  in  the  form  of  a  sheet  of  iron  it 
occupies  much  less. 

The  extent  to  which  tonnage  saving  has  been  car- 
ried is  almost  amusing.  Let  me  illustrate  with  the 
case  of  macaroni.  The  hole  in  a  single  stick  of  maca- 
roni is  a  very  trivial  thing,  but  when  you  consider 
twenty  or  thirty  millions  of  pounds  it  is  not  to  be 
despised.  Hence  we  ship  flour  in  bulk  from  America 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          323 

and  make  the  macaroni  in  France.  It  is  good  to  re- 
member that  in  tonnage  as  in  everything  else,  the  sum 
of  the  small  things  counts. 

No  phase  of  our  Purchasing  System  in  France  is 
more  significant  than  that  which  deals  with  the  pro- 
curement of  machine  tools  and  for  which  there  is  a 
special  Machine  Tool  Section.  Primarily  this  has  been 
a  War  of  Machinery.  When  you  have  studied  its 
economic  phases  as  I  have  had  the  privilege  of  doing 
for  the  past  four  years,  you  realise  the  value  of  a 
lathe  or  an  automatic.  In  the  early  days  these  ma- 
chine tools  were  almost  worth  their  weight  in  gold. 
Some  of  the  great  American  war  fortunes  were  made 
in  them,  first  because  the  Allies  had  to  have  machinery 
for  shell  production,  and  second  because  we  ourselves 
went  into  the  munitions  business  on  a  large  scale  and 
the  market  was  combed  out. 

America  had  been  so  prodigal  with  the  sale  and 
general  consumption  of  her  machine  tools  that  when 
we  actually  got  into  the  war  and  needed  machinery  for 
our  various  Services  in  France  we  were  hard  put  to 
secure  them.  At  that  time  army  purchasing  was  in 
the  first  throes  of  organisation  for  General  Dawes 
had  just  taken  command  of  procurement.  In  order 
to  expedite  his  work  in  specialised  lines  an  Auxiliary 
Advisory  Committee  composed  of  leading  American 
business  men  in  Paris  was  formed.  It  was  of  im- 
mense aid  in  securing  much-needed  machinery,  includ- 
ing 6,000  machine  tools  which  were  distributed  among 
the  Repair  establishments  in  France.  Out  of  this 
purely  volunteer  organisation  grew  the  Central  Board 


324  S.  O.  S. 

and  the  Machine  Tool  Section  of  the  General  Pur- 
chasing Board.  In  October,  1918,  however,  the  pur- 
chase of  all  machine  tools  and  small  tools  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Ordnance  Service,  of  which  the  Machine 
Tool  Section  is  now  a  part. 

Behind  this  army  acquisition  of  machinery  is  the 
larger  fact  that  every  machine  tool  used  for  war  and 
which  stands  up  under  the  strain  of  incessant  wear 
and  tear,  will  be  an  equally  important  factor  with 
peace  when  the  world  will  enter  upon  an  unprece- 
dented era  of  industrial  competition.  The  more  ma- 
chinery we  acquire  now,  especially  in  France  where 
we  will  be  compelled  to  establish  industries  to  hold  our 
own  in  the  great  commercial  game,  the  better  prepared 
we  will  be  for  the  titanic  af ter-the-war  trade  struggle. 

Our  army  purchasing  abroad  is  not  without  its  ele- 
ment of  stirring  interest.  So  unromantic  a  need  as 
a  freight  car  has  taxed  ingenuity  and  afforded  an  ex- 
ample of  Yankee  enterprise  that  fits  into  the  great 
story  of  American  war  supply  achievement.  Although 
we  have  a  succession  of  car  shops  in  France  there  is 
always  an  immense  demand  for  freight  cars.  A  large 
car-building  concern  in  a  neutral  European  country 
had  a  contract  with  a  French  Railway  for  a  thousand 
cars.  The  bodies  had  been  built  but  the  contract  re- 
mained unfilled  for  the  reason  that  between  the  time 
the  agreement  was  made  and  the  time  of  delivery 
approached,  the  price  of  steel  advanced  tremendously. 
The  Company  wished  to  increase  the  contract  price 
and  the  French  Railway  declined  to  meet  it.  As  soon 
as  the  General  Purchasing  Agent  learned  of  this  sit- 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          325 

uation  he  bought  the  bodies,  rushed  wheels  and  axles 
from  the  United  States  and  our  transportation  sys- 
tem overseas  was  a  thousand  cars  to  the  good. 

On  another  occasion  there  was  a  pressing  demand 
for  railway  ties.  It  was  before  our  sawmills  got  into 
action  and  prior  to  the  arrangement  with  the  French 
for  the  use  of  their  forests.  One  of  the  scouts  of  the 
General  Purchasing  Agent  located  an  immense  quan- 
tity of  ties  in  a  neutral  country,  got  them  on  a  ship 
and  landed  them  at  a  French  port  in  record  time. 

When  the  German  hordes  overran  Belgium,  the  rail- 
way authorities  of  that  unhappy  country  had  the  fore- 
sight to  run  five  or  six  hundred  locomotives  into 
France  under  their  own  steam  and  save  them  from 
falling  into  the  clutches  of  the  Hun.  It  was  long  be- 
fore the  great  American  Moguls  began  to  arrive  and 
we  had  to  have  engines.  General  Dawes  heard  of 
these  Belgian  locomotives  and  acquired  them.  To-day 
you  can  see  them,  with  American  engineers  at  the 
throttle,  hauling  long  trains  of  freight  cars  marked 
"U.S.A."  all  over  France.  I  cite  these  incidents  to 
show  how  the  long  arm  of  American  army  acquisi- 
tion has  reached  out  everywhere  and  obtained  needful 
supplies  without  drain  upon  the  Transatlantic  Bridge 
of  Ships. 

This  imposing  array  of  actual  commodities  gar- 
nered in  many  lands  and  under  varied  conditions  only 
comprises  one  branch  of  American  army  purchase 
abroad.  We  now  reach  a  detail  of  it  that  has  tested 
our  resource  and  skill  to  the  limit.  To  study  it  we 
must  leave  the  domain  of  the  concrete  and  deal  with 


326  S.  O.  S. 

an  intangible  thing,  which  is  power.  It  had  to  be  ac- 
quired in  precisely  the  same  way  as  guns  or  trucks. 

Fully  to  comprehend  the  extent  of  this  probleffi 
you  must  understand  that  the  A.E.F.  is  engaged  in 
an  immense  industrial  activity  in  France.  We  have 
enormous  car  and  locomotive  erection  and  repair 
shops;  we  build  tanks;  reconstruct  motor  transport; 
salvage  endless  equipment;  occupy  hospitals  almost 
without  number;  operate  docks;  roast  and  grind  cof- 
fee and  manufacture  chocolate.  All  this  requires 
power  and  every  Service  clamours  for  it.  How  do  we 
get  it? 

Instinctively  you  would  say:  "Why  not  obtain  it 
from  the  French?"  This  is  easier  said  than  done  for 
the  reason  that  war  industry  made  an  enormous  de- 
mand upon  the  French  electric  power  supply,  while 
extensive  expansion  has  been  greatly  retarded  by  the 
scarcity  of  men,  due  to  the  calling  up  of  millions  of 
men  to  the  colours.  Our  wheels  had  to  be  kept  turn- 
ing. The  provision  of  power  became  a  vital  matter 
and  its  procurement  was  put  up  to  the  General  Pur- 
chasing Agent  who,  like  our  old  friend  G4 — the  Army 
Co-ordinator — is  the  repository  of  requests. 

The  General  Purchasing  Agent  met  the  emergency 
by  establishing  what  is  known  as  a  Technical  Board, 
one  of  the  many  activities  under  his  supervision.  The 
executive  head  of  this  Board  is  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Francis  E.  Drake,  who  as  Chief  of  the  Control  Bu- 
reau is  the  Chairman  of  the  Technical  Board.  The 
active  head,  however,  is  the  Chief  Engineer,  Major 
Dugald  C.  Jackson,  a  widely-known  Consulting  En- 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          327 

gineer  with  much  experience  in  public  utilities  in 
America  and  who  was  a  member  of  the  faculty  of 
the  Boston  Institute  of  Technology.  Associated  with 
him  from  the  start  has  been  Captain  Albert  B.  Cude- 
bec,  a  specialist  in  hydro-electric  construction  and  who, 
with  Major  Jackson,  was  one  of  the  pioneers  in  Amer- 
ican army  power  production  in  France.  Gradually 
they  have  assembled  a  group  of  more  than  forty  engi- 
neers who  in  civil  life  built  dams  and  irrigation  proj- 
ects and  installed  power  plants  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific.  The  Technical  Board  is  a  sort  of  Con- 
gress of  Experts  who,  in  the  face  of  almost  innu- 
merable obstacles,  have  furnished  the  "juice"  to  drive 
the  army's  many-sided  industries. 

Since  it  was  extremely  difficult  to  get  complete  new 
power  plants  from  America  the  Board  set  about  to  de- 
velop and  adapt  existing  French  power  establishments 
to  the  American  needs.  Wherever  an  uncompleted 
French  power  station  was  discovered  American  con- 
struction gangs  were  put  to  work  to  complete  it.  Every 
possible  makeshift  was  employed  all  to  the  end  that 
power  be  secured.  The  General  Purchasing  Agent 
learned  that  some  Swiss  turbines  intended  for  Russia 
had  not  been  shipped.  They  were  immediately  se- 
cured and  installed  by  American  Engineers  in  a  French 
power  station.  Our  purchasing  representatives  scoured 
al1  Europe  for  installations.  A  complete  plant  was 
discovered  in  Portugal.  In  less  than  sixty  days  it  was 
driving  machinery  up  in  the  Advance  Section. 

The  technical  knowledge  required  for  all  this  ad- 
justing and  adapting  frequently  had  to  be  supple- 


328  S.  O.  S. 

mented  by  tact  of  the  highest  order,  for  the  reason  that 
these  undertakings  involved  rival  French  commercial 
interests  who  were  jealous  of  their  prerogatives  and 
who  had  to  be  reconciled  to  the  larger  obligation  that 
both  France  and  America  were  being  served  by  this 
expansion.  With  power,  as  with  railroads  and  docks, 
this  dynamic  Americanisation  is  helping  to  change  the 
face  of  the  country.  Small  communities  that  lacked 
public  utilities  are  now  enjoying  the  heating  and  light- 
ing advantages  of  large  cities. 

The  Technical  Board  is  on  the  job  day  and  night 
and  it  has  met  emergencies  with  a  degree  of  swift- 
ness not  surpassed  on  the  firing  line.  Here  is  a  con- 
crete story  which  will  show  the  kind  of  propositions 
that  are  put  up  to  it.  On  September  I7th,  last,  Major 
Jackson  received  the  following  telegram  from  G4  at 
Tours:  "Get  3,000  kilowatt  plant  in  Europe."  It  was 
intended  for  immediate  and  urgent  use  at  a  large 
Base  port  that  we  are  using.  You  get  some  hint  of 
the  extent  of  this  order  when  I  tell  you  that  this  plant 
was  of  sufficient  power  to  provide  electric  service  for 
a  city  o'f  the  size  of  Roanoke,  Virginia,  or  Haverhill, 
Massachusetts.  Within  a  week  a  plant  had  been  lo- 
cated in  England  and  in  a  month  it  was  installed  in 
France.  The  Supply  Cities  have  had  no  monopoly 
on  army  wonder-working. 

A  huge  map  that  hangs  in  Major  Jackson's  office 
at  the  Elysee  Palace  Hotel  gives  a  comprehensive  idea 
of  the  Empire  of  Power  that  we  have  helped  to  de- 
velop in  France.  We  use  power  in  exactly  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty-eight  localities.  Each  one  of  these 


BUSINESS  MANAGING  WAR          329 

installations  is  shown  in  a  concrete  way.  The  master 
colour  for  steam  generating  plants  is  green,  while 
hydro-electric  service  is  in  blue.  Whenever  the  serv- 
ice is  all-American  the  indication  is  surrounded  by  a 
red  circle.  In  addition  to  this  every  army  activity  has 
its  own  colour.  An  orange  square  denotes  a  bakery; 
a  black  square  a  salvage  depot;  a  green  and  white 
square  an  aviation  centre;  three  white  squares  reveal 
a  tank  building  plant,  and  so  on. 

This  American-developed  power  area  means  a  great 
deal  more  than  driving  machinery  in  A.E.F.  bakeries, 
salvage  depots,  air  service  stations  and  machine  shops. 
It  has  a  significance  for  peace  not  to  be  overestimated. 
Combined  with  the  utilisation  of  water-power,  which 
is  incorporated  into  our  general  power  scheme,  an  im- 
mense section  of  France  is  likely  to  be  diverted  after 
the  war  from  agriculture  to  industry.  The  brilliant 
imagination  of  the  French  has  caught  the  spirit  of 
what  adequate  power  means.  In  this  inevitable  evo- 
lution you  see  one  of  the  many  permanent  results  of 
the  advent  of  the  American  army. 


XIV— The  Balance  Sheet 


IF  all  our  army  buying  in  France  had  been  done  in 
a  definite  and  orderly  manner  through  forward 
requirements  and  under  circumstances  which  per- 
mitted the  drawing  up  of  stable  contracts  the"  task  of 
economic  demobilisation  would  be  comparatively  easy. 
Unfortunately,  this  has  not  been  the  case.  Millions 
of  dollars'  worth  of  food  and  supplies  had  to  be 
bought  in  the  early  days  under  the  stress  of  emergency 
which  knows  neither  haggling  nor  inspection.  We 
had  to  have  the  stuff;  the  French  and  British  saw  that 
we  got  it,  and  the  matter  of  reckoning  was  left  to  the 
then  dim  and  distant  date  when,  with  victory  assured, 
inventories  could  be  made. 

We  were  not  long  in  France  before  we  realised  that 
the  American  Business  of  War,  like  the  American  Busi- 
ness of  Peace,  required  a  good  lawyer.  We  did  what 
any  corporation  would  do  and  installed  a  Bureau  of 
Contracts  and  Adjustments  which  added  another  and 
highly  useful  section  to  the  constantly  widening  or- 
ganisation of  the  General  Purchasing  Agent.  Once 
more  the  army  took  toll  of  a  big  business  brain  be- 
cause Franklin  W.  M.  Cutcheon,  a  prominent  Wall 
Street  attorney,  who  had  specialised  in  financial  law 
for  years,  left  his  desk  in  New  York  to  take  charge  of 
what  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  Legal  De- 

330 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  331 

partment  of  the  American  Expeditionary  Force.  He 
was  commissioned  a  Captain,  but  his  conspicuous  if 
unspectacular  service  in  disentangling  the  almost  end- 
less kinks  in  our  fiscal  relations  with  our  Allies  has 
raised  him  to  a  Lieutenant-Colonelcy.  The  net  result  is 
that  Colonel  Cutcheon  occupies  very  much  the  same 
relation  to  the  army  abroad  that  Elihu  Root  bore  to 
the  American  Tobacco  Company  and  Francis  Lynde 
Stetson  to  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation.  In 
other  words,  he  keeps  the  army  out  of  legal  morasses 
and  helps  in  no  small  way  to  pave  the  way  to  an 
orderly  adjustment  of  our  international  relations  when 
the  war  is  over. 

When  Colonel  Cutcheon  took  hold  in  January,  1918, 
he  faced  a  well-nigh  staggering  proposition.  It  was 
no  man's  fault  but  the  fault  of  the  great  god  War. 
Practically  all  the  first  purchasing  of  the  A.E.F.  was 
done  in  haste.  The  contracts  were  verbal  and  there- 
fore indefinite.  The  French  Government  had  met 
the  situation  promptly  by  allowing  us  to  get  supplies 
at  cost.  Hence  in  many  instances  there  was  no  fixed 
price.  Britain  displayed  the  same  generosity.  When 
the  bills  began  to  come  in  there  was  naturally  no  way 
to  check  up.  First  of  all,  there  was  a  lack  of  data 
about  deliveries.  In  those  first  days  we  did  not  have 
enough  officers  to  go  round  and  Sergeants  had  to  act 
as  Quartermaster  Lieutenants  and  receive  goods. 
Many  of  them  have  been  shifted;  some  have  been 
killed;  others  have  gone  home.  We  had  to  begin  to 
straighten  out  our  financial  affairs  and  the  job  be- 


332  S.  O.  S. 

came  part  of  the  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Contracts  and 
Adjustments. 

The  first  attack  was  launched  against  the  mountain 
of  unpaid  bills,  involving  many  millions  of  francs  and 
covering  items  that  ranged  from  gasolene  to  guns. 
The  Board  did  what  any  Court  would  do  in  the  case 
of  a  promissory  note.  If  evidence  was  lacking  it  be- 
came a  matter  of  good  faith.  Wherever  receipts  for 
delivery  were  unavailable  the  word  of  the  French  Gov- 
ernment was  taken.  The  financial  decks  were  cleared 
and  an  era  of  economic  administration  began.  Hence- 
forth every  voucher  for  purchases  had  to  have  the 
receipt  of  delivery  attached,  a  French  or  British  cer- 
tification which,  with  the  United  States  Government 
check,  concluded  the  transaction. 

Every  army  contract  of  importance  must  have  the 
approval  of  the  Bureau  of  Contracts  and  Adjust- 
ments. This  work,  however,  does  not  end  when  the 
contract  is  signed  or  even  executed  as  this  incident 
will  show.  A  French  butcher  made  a  contract  at  a 
Base  port  to  furnish  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force  with  5,000  pounds  of  fresh  beef  every  day. 
After  he  had  begun  to  carry  out  the  terms  of  the  con- 
tract the  price  of  meat  went  up.  When  he  submitted 
his  first  bills  he  increased  his  price  accordingly,  al- 
though it  was  not  the  contract  price.  The  Command- 
ing General  of  the  district  approved  of  the  transac- 
tion, but  the  Disbursing  Officer  declined  to  pay,  con- 
tending that  the  strict  letter  of  the  contract  had  to  be 
fulfilled.  The  matter  was  referred  to  the  Bureau  of 
Contracts,  which,  after  a  careful  investigation,  de- 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  333 

cided  that  the  butcher,  who  was  a  man  of  excellent 
character,  had  no  intent  to  gouge  and  was  therefore 
justified  in  what  he  did,  and  the  bill  was  paid.  This 
is  a  typical  example  of  what  the  Board  is  constantly 
called  upon  to  do. 

The  Board  also  deals  with  all  claims  other  than 
those  involving  damages.  The  A.E.F.,  for  example, 
may  make  a  contract  with  a  French  quarry-man  for 
a  large  amount  of  stone;  the  man  may  be  delayed  so 
long  in  installing  his  machinery  that  the  material  must 
be  procured  elsewhere.  The  quarry-man,  however, 
has  a  justifiable  claim  for  compensation  based  on  his 
expenditure  for  a  new  plant.  It  is  no  uncommon  case. 

So,  too,  with  the  many  claims  of  the  Allied  Gov- 
ernments. In  these  transactions  Colonel  Cutcheon 
acts  precisely  as  a  negotiating  lawyer  would  act  down 
in  the  financial  district  in  New  York  when  two  great 
corporations  are  putting  through  a  big  deal.  He  is 
both  lawyer  and  business-man.  Typical  of  the  com- 
plications that  arise  in  these  matters  is  an  episode  that 
relates  to  the  British.  As  is  now  well  known,  a  num- 
ber of  American  Divisions  were  sent  to  the  British 
army  last  summer  partly  for  intensive  training  and 
partly  for  combat.  Although  they  were  equipped 
when  they  arrived  in  France,  they  had  to  use  British 
machine  guns,  rifles  and  ammunition.  In  addition, 
the  British  had  to  transport,  feed  and  house  them  and 
provide  laundries.  It  was  not  difficult  to  figure  out 
a  basis  of  settlement  for  actual  new  equipment,  but 
the  matter  of  land  and  sea  transport  was  more  com- 
plicated. The  British  frankly  admitted  that  they  did 


334  S.  O.  S. 

not  know  how  to  appraise  and  charge,  so  a  "capita- 
tion" rate  of  a  certain  sum  per  head  per  day  for  each 
American  soldier  was  agreed  on. 

The  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Contracts  and  Adjust- 
ments will  continue  long  after  the  last  American 
doughboy  has  waved  farewell  to  the  shores  of  France. 
On  it  will  depend  some  of  the  harmony  of  our  whole 
future  relations  with  the  Allies.  This  observation 
brings  us  to  still  another  wing  in  the  organisation  of 
the  General  Purchasing  Agent  which  is  engaged  in 
a  task  no  less  vital  to  our  permanent  friendship  with 
the  great  peoples  with  whom  we  have  fought  and  bled. 
I  mean  the  Board  of  Accounts  which  was  a  natural 
development  of  the  stream  of  fiscal  items  that  lit- 
erally poured  into  the  G.P.A.'s  office. 

The  reason  for  the  existence  of  a  Board  of  Ac- 
counts requires  no  diagram.  With  eleven  Services 
buying  supplies  every  day;  with  almost  continuous 
financial  transactions  with  Allies  and  neutrals  involv- 
ing half  a  dozen  different  kinds  of  money;  and  finally 
the  necessity  for  a  prompt  winding-up  of  all  these  re- 
lations as  soon  as  possible  after  peace,  the  need  of 
fiscal  centralisation  and  standardisation  is  obvious. 
The  Bureau  of  Accounts,  therefore,  is  charged  with 
rendering  a  consolidated  account  of  all  A.E.F.  ex- 
penditure. This  means  that  it  must  mobilise,  classify 
and  itemise  all  vouchers  and  make  up  a  Master  Ac- 
count for  the  War  Department  at  Washington.  It  is 
a  control  and  record  bureau  rather  than  an  operating 
institution.  Its  work  is  to  create  a  machinery  that  will 
make  the  path  to  economic  army  demobilisation  easy. 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  335 

Such  a  work  requires  the  most  highly  specialised 
direction.  It  was  found  in  the  person  of  Major  C.  H. 
Holloway,  who  in  civil  life  was  a  member  of  one 
of  the  largest  expert  accountant  firms  in  New  York. 
With  him  as  junior  officers  are  men  with  similar  ex- 
perience who  have  been  invaluable  assets  in  this  all- 
important  labour  which,  with  the  end  of  the  war  in 
sight,  is  just  beginning. 

In  analysing  this  work  you  again  face  the  many 
complications  arising  out  of  our  advent  in  France  in 
unexpected  numbers  and  the  emergency  commercial 
relations  that  had  to  be  established  with  our  Allies. 
In  war  every  step  is  costly  either  in  human  life  or  in 
money.  In  times  of  great  stress  when  the  newspapers 
are  filled  with  the  accounts  of  great  advances  and  the 
conduct  of  the  conflict  is  a  matter  of  every-day  neces- 
sity the  cost  is  seldom  reckoned.  But  when  the  smoke 
of  battle  clears  and  peace  is  on  every  tongue  the  words 
"Settle  up"  have  a  far  different  meaning.  The  "over- 
head" on  glory  must  be  reckoned  coldly  and  in  cash. 
The  A.E.F.  went  to  France  prepared  to  pay  for  what 
it  got  and  the  Board  of  Accounts  is  making  it  possi- 
ble to  find  out  what  it  owes,  and  will  owe  when  the 
end  has  come. 

"Why  didn't  the  army  pay  as  it  went?"  you  may 
ask.  Simply  for  the  reason,  as  I  have  pointed  out 
earlier  in  this  article,  that  emergency  knows  neither 
haggling  nor  orderly  transaction.  The  payment  for 
actual  purchases  made  in  the  normal  course  of  war 
event  is  a  simple  p:,r;:  ui  iDook-keeping.  But  when 
you  come  to  appraise,  for  instance,  the  value  of  a 


336  S.  O.  S. 

forest  and  the  basis  on  which  it  is  to  be  restored  after 
the  war,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  pure  speculation. 

Here  is  another  case.  An  emergency  arose  through 
which  the  A.E.F.  required  many  thousands  of  French 
horses.  These  beasts  had  to  be  acquired  through  a 
swift  census  of  the  farms  of  France.  There  was  no 
time  for  dickering.  Big  guns  had  to  be  moved;  we 
got  the  horses,  and  the  bill  will  be  rendered  later. 

Still  another  instance  of  this  inevitable  financial 
"hangover"  arises  out  of  our  joint  occupation  with 
the  French  or  British  of  various  sectors  in  France. 
Our  units  have  been  thrown  temporarily  into  various 
districts  where  they  purchased  supplies  and  incurred 
other  fiscal  obligations.  Almost  before  there  could 
be  an  orderly  process  of  accounting  they  were  shifted 
elsewhere.  Adjudication  had  to  wait  for  serener 
times. 

This  is  why  an  immense  amount  of  unpaid  obliga- 
tion confronts  us  with  the  cessation  of  hostilities.  In 
addition  to  the  instances  I  have  already  specified  it 
applies  to  the  use  of  the  French  railways,  the  lease  of 
locomotives  from  the  Belgian  Government,  the  re- 
habilitation and  occupation  of  plants,  quarries  and 
hospitals,  and  the  undetermined  debts  in  neutral  coun- 
tries. So  much  for  our  debit. 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  established  a  considera- 
ble credit  for  we  have  provided  our  Allies  with  quan- 
tities of  supplies  that  they  were  unable  to  obtain  them- 
selves, more  especially  food,  fuel  and  metal  stores. 
Frequently  these  supplies  have  been  issued  in  the  field 
and  were  recorded  on  scraps  of  paper  or  anything  that 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  337 

would  hold  pen  and  ink.  The  task  of  the  Board  of 
Accounts  is  not  only  to  consolidate  these  various  debits 
and  credits,  but  establish  a  series  of  standardised  forms 
which  makes  inter-allied  financial  transactions  simple 
and  easy. 

The  way  "deliveries"  to  Allied  forces  has  become  a 
matter  of  systematic  record  will  explain  what  has  been 
done.  Every  officer  in  the  field  who  issues  supplies 
to  the  French,  for  example,  is  provided  with  a  book 
in  which  the  issue  is  recorded  in  quadruplicate.  All 
instructions  are  in  both  English  and  French.  The 
original  and  duplicate  are  signed  by  the  Allied  Re- 
ceiving Officer  and  returned  to  the  American  Deliver- 
ing Officer,  who  keeps  one  and  sends  the  other  to  the 
Board  of  Accounts.  The  triplicate  copy  is  retained 
by  the  Allied  Receiving  Officer,  while  the  fourth  goes 
to  the  French  Government.  Thus  all  parties  to  the 
transaction  have  a  definite  record.  In  addition,  the 
back  of  the  book  contains  a  form,  also  to  be  made  out 
in  quadruplicate,  for  the  whole  month's  transactions. 
This  is  only  one  example  of  standardisation  of  form* 
It  is  being  extended  so  as  to  cover  every  phase  of 
inter-allied  army  negotiations  involving  money.  A 
standard  form  has  been  made  out  to  "bill"  the  British 
and  French  Governments  that  is  a  model  of  complete- 
ness and  detail.  All  this  means  that  when  the  time 
comes  to  balance  the  great  Book  of  War  there  will  be 
a  definite  and  orderly  basis  of  settlement.  When  you 
polish  off  the  financial  rough-spots  you  go  a  long  way 
towards  establishing  harmony.  In  war  or  peace, 


338  S.  O.  S. 

money,  or  the  lack  of  it,  is  the  usual  root  of  most 
evil. 

This  standardisation  of  accounts  will  perform  still 
another  vital  service  for  peace.  It  will  enable  the 
various  Governments  to  know  their  war  obligations 
in  advance  of  that  great  day  when  the  armies  come 
marching  home.  This  means  that  they  can  arrange 
for  additional  loans  and  taxes  and  help  to  adjust  the 
tangle  of  foreign  exchange  which,  unless  anticipated, 
may  be  one  of  the  economic  sore  spots  in  the  epoch 
of  world  rehabilitation. 

The  subject  of  money  naturally  leads  to  the  Finan- 
cial Requisition  Officer — Captain  Raymond  Ives — who 
is  the  custodian  of  the  strong-box  of  the  A.E.F.  His 
office  is  one  of  the  smallest  in  the  Elysee  Palace  Hotel, 
yet  the  army  can  do  no  business  without  him  because 
he  holds  the  purse  strings.  The  Disbursing  Officer  of 
each  Service — in  the  main  they  pay  their  own  bills — - 
issues  checks  against  deposits  in  the  branches  of  the 
American  Trust  Companies  that  are  the  accredited 
depositories  in  Paris.  Every  afternoon  each  of  these 
Companies  renders  Captain  Ives  a  total  of  all  the 
army  checks  drawn  on  it  the  day  before.  He  in  turn 
gives  them  a  check  on  the  Bank  of  France  to  cover 
the  amount.  Uncle  Sam  maintains  a  generous  credit 
in  this  great  national  financial  institution. 

In  this  daily  check-up  you  find  the  application  of  a 
rule  in  operation  in  every  well-conducted  corporation. 
It  means  that  the  army  has  no  idle  and  inert  money 
lying  around  loose  in  the  French  banks,  as  was  the 
case  before  our  system  became  organised.  Instead, 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  339 

our  funds  are  liquid  and  at  work.  If  you  want  to  get 
some  idea  of  what  war  costs  I  have  only  to  add  that 
the  disbursing  requirements  for  the  A.E.F.  for  Octo- 
ber, November  and  December  are  exactly  2,693,139,- 
185  francs,  or  $538,627,837. 

The  average  reader  need  scarcely  be  told  that  all 
this  ramified  buying,  which  must  go  on  long  after  the 
armistice  is  signed,  and  which  involves  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  and  many  thousands  of  articles  of 
every-day  use,  must  have  a  background  of  vital  statis- 
tics. Sir  Eric  Geddes,  First  Lord  of  the  British  Ad- 
miralty, and  a  Master  Doer,  once  told  me  that  the 
secret  of  success,  in  the  Business  of  War  or  in  the 
Business  of  Peace,  was  summed  up  in  the  sentence: 
"Statistise  everything."  The  General  Purchasing  Agent 
does  this  very  thing.  Hence  the  Statistical  Board  is 
an  essential  instrument  of  co-ordination  of  war  work 
which,  as  you  will  presently  discover,  is  performing  a 
definite  service  for  peace.  It  was  built  up  by  Major 
J.  C.  Roop,  now  at  other  work,  and  is  in  charge  of 
Major  Joseph  Willard  Krueger,  who  has  audited 
construction  accounts  all  the  way  from  the  Philippines 
to  the  Malay  States,  and  who  was  on  the  Board  of 
Valuation  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission 
when  he  cast  off  mufti  for  the  army  khaki. 

His  main  job  is  to  classify  and  compile  the  consol- 
idated lists  of  quarterly  forecasts  of  the  army  pur- 
chases. It  involves  an  examination  of  every  order 
for  commodities  and  materials  authorised  by  the 
A.E.F.  He  gets  the  similar  forecasts  of  the  British 
and  French  armies  in  France  "for  the  purpose  of 


340  S.  O.  S. 

comparison,  standardisation  and  control/'  In  simple 
every-day  language  this  means  that  he  must  prevent 
duplication  as  far  as  possible.  To  achieve  this  de- 
sirable and  economical  end  he  has,  with  the  co-opera- 
tion of  Lieutenant  Donald  des  Granges,  a  Boston 
architect  in  civil  life,  instituted  a  work  that  will  make 
a  definite  and  permanent  contribution  to  the  stabili- 
sation of  international  trade.  It  reveals  a  picturesque 
condition  developed  by  the  war. 

Every  Service  in  every  Allied  army  uses  nearly 
every  known  kind  of  tool,  especially  in  its  Supply  do- 
main. Each  Service,  however,  has  a  different  name 
for  the  same  article.  Ask  an  Englishman  for  a  mon- 
key-wrench and  he  thinks  you  are  talking  about  nat- 
ural history ;  speak  of  a  frog,  which  is  a  portion  of  a 
railroad  switch,  to  a  Frenchman  and  he  at  once  as- 
sumes that  you  mean  one  of  his  favourite  articles  of 
food.  When  you  see  a  bunch  of  inter-allied  army  or- 
ders you  are  apt  to  find  eight  or  nine  different  titles 
for  the  same  thing.  Let  me  illustrate  with  a  common 
saw.  In  making  requisitions  the  Air  Service  calls  it 
a  hand  cross-cut  saw;  the  Engineers  know  it  as  a 
cross-cut  saw;  Motor  Transport  knows  it  as  a  hand 
saw;  Construction  and  Forestry  orders  it  as  a  wood 
saw;  while  the  Salvage  Service  indicates  it  as  a  car- 
penter saw.  It  makes  for  confusion. 

The  Statistical  Bureau  is  making  a  giant  card  index 
or  a  Vocabulary  as  it  will  be  finally  known,  that 
standardises  the  name  of  every  article  that  armies 
will  use.  The  specific  item  of  saws  that  I  have  just 
used  shows  the  urgent  need  of  it.  In  the  Vocabulary 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  341 

.  •   x  -— 

all  ordering  will  be  made  for  a  hand  saw.  The  Brit- 
ish and  French  will  have  a  copy  of  this  index  and  will 
know  precisely  what  the  Americans  want,  while  the 
Americans  in  turn  will  be  able  to  fill  the  needs  of  the 
Allies  in  the  same  intelligent  way. 

This  Vocabulary  will  have  an  immense  significance 
after  the  war  when  orderly  trading  between  nations 
will  develop  at  a  tremendous  rate.  One  of  the  great- 
est drawbacks  hitherto  in  international  business  rela- 
tions has  been  the  difficulty  of  different  peoples  in 
making  one  another  understood.  The  Vocabulary, 
therefore,  becomes  a  dictionary  for  world  commerce 
and  will  be  one  of  the  many  constructive  contributions 
that  War  will  make  to  Economic  Peace. 

The  work  of  the  American  army  in  France  both  at 
the  front  and  in  the  Services  of  Supply  could  never 
have  achieved  its  results  without  perfect  liaison  with 
the  French  and  the  British.  Since  our  armies  have 
operated  in  France  and  have  bought,  and  will  keep 
on  buying,  the  bulk  of  their  supplies  from  the  French, 
this  series  would  be  incomplete  without  a  brief  ex- 
planation of  how  liaison  works.  I  can  impress  its 
value  no  better  than  to  quote  what  an  American  Gen- 
eral in  France  once  said  in  connection  with  it.  His 
remarks  were: 

"I  wish  earnestly  that  two  vital  points  be  once  for 
all  brought  to  the  minds  of  all  American  officers; 
one  is  that  liaison  is  nine-tenths  of  the  battle;  the 
other  is  that  two  minutes  of  personal  conversation 
are  worth  more  than  a  ream  of  correspondence." 

Liaison  as  applied  to  the  army  is  the  connecting  link 


342  S.  O.  S. 

between  inter-allied  forces.  At  the  Headquarters  of 
the  Services  of  Supply,  for  example,  there  is  a  so- 
called  French  Mission  which  represents  the  authority 
of  the  French  army.  All  negotiations  with  the  French 
must  be  made  through  that  Mission.  Attached  to 
every  Service,  large  or  small,  is  a  French  Liaison  Offi- 
cer. When  any  matter  arises  that  requires  French 
intervention  or  co-operation  it  is  referred  to  him  first. 
In  the  Elysee  Palace  Hotel  is  a  considerable  French 
Mission  which  acts  as  the  intermediary  in  all  matters 
of  purchase  and  which  stamps  the  final  French  ap- 
proval on  all  American  orders  for  goods  bought  in 
our  Sister  Republic. 

Sum  up  the  work  of  the  fiscal  activities  that  flour- 
ish under  the  banner  of  the  General  Purchasing  Agent 
and  you  find  that  they  write  a  consolidated  insurance 
policy  against  post-war  investigations  and  scandals. 
Long  and  costly  experience  has  shown  that  it  is  not 
war  itself  that  digs  the  graves  of  reputations  but  the 
official  inquiries  that  come  afterwards.  When  peace 
finally  broods  John  Jones  of  Oshkosh  or  anywhere 
in  the  United  States  who  bought  a  Liberty  Bond  may, 
and  probably  will,  demand  to  know  how  his  money 
was  spent  in  France.  Thanks  to  a  standardised  ac- 
counting system  and  a  recorded  "follow-up"  of  sup- 
plies to  the  point  of  consumption  he  will  be  told  to 
the  last  dollar.  The  balance  sheet  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force  will  be  as  clean  as  the  consciences 
of  the  gallant  men  who  registered  their  heroism  on  the 
field  of  battle. 

It  only  remains  to  speak  of  the  significant  co- 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  343 

ordinating  agencies  that  supplement  the  Business 
Managing  of  War  and  rear  the  unbroken  bulwark  of 
Allied  Supply.  Chief  among  them  in  many  respects 
is  the  Military  Board  of  Allied  Supply  which  is  wholly 
American  in  conception. 

After  the  momentous  decision  was  made  for  mili- 
tary unification  of  the  Allied  front  under  the  su- 
preme command  of  Marshal  Foch,  General  Pershing 
made  the  proposition  to  the  Allied  Governments  last 
April  that  it  was  absolutely  essential  to  match  this 
with  a  military  unification  of  the  rear.  He  made  a 
general  request  for  an  immediate  consideration  of  the 
matter.  He  appointed  General  Dawes,  then  a  Colonel, 
to  represent  the  A.E.F.,  while  M.  Clemenceau  named 
M.  Loucheur,  the  French  Minister  of  Armament,  to 
consult  and  suggest  a  plan.  They  jointly  devised  a 
scheme  for  co-ordination  which  was  discussed  at  two 
conferences.  M.  Clemenceau  presided  at  one  of  them. 

The  result  of  these  international  conferences  was 
to  demonstrate  again  the  enormous  difficulty  so  often 
encountered  throughout  the  entire  war  of  securing 
agreement  between  large  bodies.  In  his  great  desire 
to  secure  military  unification  of  the  rear  General 
Pershing  authorised  General  Dawes  to  state  to  the 
inter-allied  conferences  that  if  it  could  not  be  accom- 
plished otherwise  he  would  relinquish  the  command 
of  his  own  rear  in  favour  of  either  a  Frenchman  or  an 
Englishman  under  a  plan  of  consolidated  authority. 
Finally,  realising  the  necessity  for  quick  decision,  Gen- 
eral Pershing,  without  waiting  for  a  conclusion  of  the 
inter-allied  conferences,  submitted  a  plan  to  M.  Clem- 


344  S.  O.  S. 

enceau  which  they  jointly  signed.  He  then  sent  Gen- 
eral Dawes  to  England  to  see  Lloyd  George  and  Vis- 
count Milner,  the  British  Secretary  of  State  for  War, 
to  secure  the  acquiescence  of  the  English  Government. 
After  General  D  awes' s  explanation  of  the  plan  the 
English  Government,  through  Viscount  Milner,  for- 
mally accepted  it. 

The  plan,  as  finally  adopted,  provided  for  the  co- 
ordination of  the  rear  of  the  three  armies  by  means 
of  a  Military  Board  consisting  of  one  officer  from 
each  army.  The  President  of  this  Board  is  Colonel 
Charles  Payot,  who  has  been  in  command  of  the  rear 
of  the  French  Army  for  the  last  three  years,  and  is 
considered  one  of  the  ablest  officers  in  the  allied  armies., 
Major  General  Reginald  Ford  represents  the  British 
Army  and  General  Dawes  by  nomination  of  General 
Pershing  represents  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force.  The  Italian  Army  in  France  is  represented  by 
General  Merrone  and  the  Belgian  Army  by  Major 
Cumont. 

The  complete  record  of  the  formation  and  accom- 
plishments of  the  Military  Board  of. Allied  Supply 
or,  as  the  French  term  it,  the  Comite  Interallie  des 
Ravitaillements,  will  afford  one  of  the  most  illumi- 
nating studies  of  both  the  difficulties  and  the  enor- 
mous advantages  of  allied  co-ordination  and  will  shed 
a  new  light  upon  the  strong  character  and  broad 
vision  of  the  American  Commander-in-Chief. 

The  Military  Board  of  Allied  Supply  only  repre- 
sents one  angle  of  the  extraordinary  team-work  be- 
tween the  Allied  Governments  which  brought  Ger- 


THE  BALANCE  SHEET  345 

many  to  her  knees.  Its  full  mate  is  the  Inter-Allied 
Munitions  Council  which  standardised  shells  and  guns 
and  enabled  America,  for  one  thing,  to  take  her  place 
in  the  battle-line  without  delay.  The  principal  Amer- 
ican member  is  Mr.  Edward  R.  Stettinius,  whose 
great  work  as  Chief  Purchasing  Agent  of  the  Allies 
in  America  in  the  early  years  of  the  war  equipped  him 
admirably  for  this  huge  task.  He  has  occupied  a 
dual  role  in  the  fact  that  he  went  to  France  as  a 
special  representative  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  which 
made  him  an  unofficial  and  overseas  member  of  the 
Cabinet.  The  Council  created  vast  pools  of  ammuni- 
tion upon  which  the  three  Allied  armies  drew. 

Full  mate  in  co-ordination  is  the  Inter-Allied  Mari- 
time Transport  Council  which  will  endure  in  history 
and  likewise  in  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  American 
people  because,  to  the  great  sacrifice  of  British  inter- 
national trade,  it  placed  great  fleets  of  ships  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  United  States  and  for  months  on  end 
carried  practically  sixty  per  cent  of  our  troops  to 
France.  Without  this  aid  we  might  have  continued  a 
negligible  fighting  factor  and  might  not  have  been  in 
strong  at  the  death. 

All  this  close-knit  endeavour,  both  in  supply  and 
transport,  dramatises  an  inter-allied  co-operation  that, 
in  the  last  analysis,  expresses  the  principle  upon  which 
the  whole  structure  of  modern  industry  is  reared.  In 
the  adjustment  of  those  larger  problems  arising  be- 
tween Labour  and  Capital  the  key  to  harmony  lies  in 
collective  bargaining.  The  Allies  have  won  the  war 
because,  after  nearly  four  years  of  acting  on  their 


346  S.  O.  S. 

own,  they  subordinated  individualism  to  the  bigger 
issue  of  defeating  Germany.  What  was  said  in  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter  may  now  be  repeated  and 
emphasised  at  the  close.  In  this  unity  of  effort  in 
the  front  and  the  rear  lies  the  real  reason  for  democ- 
racy's triumph. 

How  long  this  team-work  will  obtain  after  peace 
no  man  can  tell.  The  struggle  to  live,  both  with  the 
individual  and  the  nation,  will  become  a  fierce  battle 
for  existence.  It  will  be  a  case  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Whatever  happens,  one  thing  is  certain.  The 
lessons  of  co-ordination  learned  in  the  travail  of  war 
emergency  will  have  their  constructive  effect  long 
hereafter. 

History  will  give  the  American  fighting  men  a  high 
place  in  the  Valhalla  of  the  Great  War.  Because  of 
the  unexpected  end  of  the  struggle  they  did  not  have 
the  opportunity  to  show  their  mettle  in  larger  numbers 
and  in  a  wider  field,  however  ardent  their  hope.  Their 
comrades  of  the  rear  have  been  more  fortunate. 
Their  task  began  the  moment  the  American  flag  was 
unfurled  on  the  Soil  of  Freedom,  and  they  were  able 
to  record  a  complete  achievement  in  force  that  will 
endure  with  the  gallantries  of  Chateau-Thierry  and 
Saint  Mihiel. 

There  is  glory  in  Supply  as  well  as  in  Combat. 

THE  END 


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